Reckoning
by Ophium
Summary: Sequel to Resurrection. While the reasons behind the attack on the garrison remain unknown, Treville suspects that there was more at play. Meanwhile, with the help of his two new friends, Aramis struggles to leave René behind and become, once more, Aramis. The shadows of Savoy, however, still have a very long reach.
1. Chapter 1

**AN** :So, quick resume of the first part of this story, for those who haven't read Resurrection. Three months after Savoy, Athos joins the garrison and is put to the test by fighting Porthos. Aramis, having secluded himself from regular Musketeer business, insists on now being called René and works at the sickrooms. Treville, fearing any retaliation on part of the Cardinal or the Duke of Savoy, has kept secret Aramis' involvement in the massacre and the fact that there were, in fact, two survivors.

Three men infiltrate the garrison and blow up the gunpowder barrels stored in the armory, resulting in a number of wounded and dead.

Two of the assailants find themselves trapped in the sickrooms, together with Porthos, Athos and René, eventually resulting in one of them being killed and the other, wounded, taken prisoner by Treville.

The Cardinal, claiming that Treville is too close to the matter to be impartial, takes charge of the prisoner.

* * *

 _Now_

The cell was dark and moist, water dripping from the ceiling as if the Seine itself ran above those walls and was gently asking permission to come inside.

The man sat against the stone wall, his eyes fixed on the first rays of sun shyly peeking between the iron bars of the lonely window.

It had been months since he had last felt the cool touch of the wind or basked his skin in the warmth of the sun. Still, he knew that the odds of him stepping outside, other than to meet the noose, were close to none. He would almost welcome it, if it meant stepping outside those four, decaying walls.

The sound of footsteps, echoing down the hall, sent all of his rat companions skittering away for the closest hole.

No one had come to ask him any questions. No one had cared about what he had to say, but still the man had held on to the knowledge that, if he were to open his mouth and whisper the right words into the proper ears, he might still be saved.

The heavy wooden door cringed as it was pushed open, dirty straw creasing the floor in its path. The figure that stood at the threshold of his cell door was imposing in his spotless garb, perfectly conscious of the power he wielded. His, unfortunately, were not the right ears to whisper words to. He was not there to save him.

The man knelt in front of the figure and kissed the black stone on his ring, as it was appropriate for someone above his station. "I haven't said a word," he whispered, his voice hoarse from disuse.

The robed figure looked down without a hint of compassion in his blue gaze. "And for that, our employer has kept you safe, as promised."

"I've done well, then?" the man asked, an uncontrollable tremor taking hold of his whole being. "Can I go home now?"

The robed figure slowly pulled a thin dagger from his left sleeve, putting his hand over the man's head, as if in blessing. "Yes."

~§~

Treville leaned against the balcony outside his office, gazing down upon the men in the yard. The clatter of cups and plates had replaced that of swords and fists, as most of the men training that morning had sat down to enjoy their midday meal.

The smell of sweat, dirty straw and horses was commonplace at the garrison, but even that didn't seem to deter the men from gulping Serge's stew by the mouthful.

Murmurs of conversation reached his ears, but Treville paid no attention to any in particular. Men would be men and their conversations would always orbit around boasting, whether the subject matter were women or their prowess with sword and musket. Here and there he could hear a whisper of a different topic, muted voices tempted to speak ill about one of their own rank, to discuss recent events, but as soon as they sensed the Captain's gaze upon them, those words would die down and the dialogue would veer once more to harmless, trivial matters.

The quaint quotidian was broken by the sound of small feet, tapping hurriedly against the cobblestones, as a little boy stumbled breathlessly across the entry arch and barged into the garrison's grounds. There were strings of sweat streaming down the lad's dirty face and his hands were covered in blood.

The men grew silent.

"The...Cap...tain," the boy gasped out, looking around the yard, searching the many concerned faces that surrounded him. "Where's the Captain?"

Treville was already halfway down the stairs before hearing his name being called. He rushed to the lad's side, his eyes searching for a wound to explain all the blood. "Are you hurt?"

The boy shook his head, greasy hair barely moving. "You the Captain?"

Treville nodded.

"Ya must come, then!" the boy said, grabbing Treville's hand to pull him away. Blood made the contact sticky, like glue binding their hands.

The Captain gently resisted. "What has happened? Go where?"

"T'dead man, Captain," the lad spoke, glaring at him like it was such an obvious thing. "There's a dead man in _maman's_ cellar!"

~§~

 _Three days before_

The King's Musketeers had been formed, nearly three years before, to guard and protect the King and Queen whenever they stepped outside the royal grounds. At its best, it meant long periods of idly standing guard as the royal family strolled the gardens or received guests; at worst, crowd control for when they chose to parade themselves amongst the commoners.

Currently, it meant watching over Louis XIII as he trampled the snow-covered woods near Paris, scaring away all possibility of any quarry to be caught. Because when the King decided that he wanted to hunt, hunting they went, even if it was the middle of winter and most animals were either hibernating or hiding away.

Aramis stood to the side, keeping a clear view of both the monarch and the woods ahead, his keen eyes more attentive to any possibility of danger to the King than to any lost fox, yet to be scared away by Louis' loud complaints.

With him stood Athos and Porthos, flanking him like personal guards of his own. Aramis had to smile to himself. Since these two had taken him under their wings, he seemed to have been promoted to royalty himself, with his own private following. On the days it didn't become stifling, it was absolutely flattering.

For reasons he couldn't completely understand, the three of them had become quite close, enjoying each other's company whether it was during training or drinking. Aramis would even go so far as to call them friends. Good friends.

This was, however, the first time that Treville had sent them on the same assignment, dull as it was.

Aramis was not one to complain. In fact, he was thankful to have such an understanding commanding officer, one who seemed to recognize and accept the reality that even a Musketeer needed some time to return to his old self after such dramatic events. There had been other commanding officers in his career who, Aramis was sure, would have not been so lenient.

To his shame, there were still days that he woke up covered in sweat, unaware of where he was, days that he could hear the screaming of his murdered brothers in the wind, days when his hands trembled so badly that he could not keep hold of his pistols, much less load them or fire them.

Looking down for a moment, Aramis was happy to see that today was not one of those days. Today, he was certain, was going to be a good day.

"Ah! I see one!" Louis yelled like an overexcited child, waving his musket wildly as he readjusted his position to aim at the unsuspecting animal.

Aramis looked in the direction the monarch was pointing, seeing nothing more than a broken tree trunk and snow. He supposed the two branches sticking out could be confused for fox ears...

The shot rang out in the otherwise quiet woods, sending a few crows scattering. The ball hit its mark, if the spray of splinters was anything to go by.

"Did I hit it?" Louis enquired of the nearest Musketeer, squinting at a distance. "Well?"

The man, startled to have been addressed personally by the King and trying to suppress his mirth at the cluelessness of the current ruler of France, stuttered a few excuses before offering to personally go and find out.

Aramis hid a smirk of his own, knowing that Poitier had scurried away on purpose, lest he lost his composure and disgraced himself by laughing at the King. He was wondering how the man would report back that the King had killed a dead tree when a pair of wiggling fingers entered his field of vision.

"Your musket, soldier!" the King demanded. "I see another one and I shan't miss this time," he added with a toothy smile.

Aramis offered a slight nod of his head, mostly to hide the annoyance in his eyes. He could see that one of the King's servants was nearly done with reloading the monarch's own weapon, so he could see no reason to surrender his. A soldier's musket was his own, and like most in the regiment, Aramis disliked when his weapon was used by others.

The King, however, was not a patient man.

Unclipping it from his belt, Aramis handed Louis the loaded weapon, suppressing a sigh of resignation. He would have to clean and realign the whole thing once the King was done ruining it...

Louis took aim and Aramis followed the barrel to look for the intended target. To his surprise, there truly _was_ a fox in the woods this time, peeking from under a large tree root, a red-furred little thing, apparently unaware of their presence.

It took but a second, as the wind changed, to alert the animal to their scent and send it in flight, escaping at a fast run. The King, intent on not returning to the palace empty-handed, followed its path through the woods, eyes on nothing else but the kill.

Everyone failed to notice that the fox was running towards Poitier's position. Aramis realized their mistake at the same moment the King squeezed the trigger and sent the ball flying.

By the time Aramis pushed the weapon away, it was already too late.

Poitier stumbled back, confusion plain in his face as he looked towards the King and the others. His hand rose to touch his left side, red blossoming through his fingers as he collapsed to the ground like a piece of discarded cloth.

The King looked around, confusion on his face as he slowly realized that his shot had done such damage. After all, he had been aiming at a fox, not a Musketeer. "Look what your weapon made me do!" he yelled at Aramis, anger and petulance covering his nervousness.

Aramis, however, was barely listening, as he raced towards the fallen Musketeer. He was aware that others were beside him, but their presence was barely noted.

There were too many bodies clouding his vision, too many dead soldiers with their throats slit and he couldn't find Poitier amidst all the ghosts. All he could see was the white snow and the blood, soaking it red.

~§~

Porthos was not accustomed to long bouts of utter stillness. More than a personality trait, it was something that he had learned to avoid and hate. For those born and raised in the Court of Miracles, to linger too long in the same place meant a dark cell or worse, the gallows.

Stillness, Porthos had soon discovered, was the most trying part of his training to become a Musketeer. Using his fists - and just about everything else he could lay his hands on - in a fight was something that he was more than familiar with, so when Treville had put a sword in his hands, it hadn't felt much different from the life he had known thus far.

Horseback riding had taken some practice, he would admit, but all the horses in the Musketeers' stables were well-bred, trained animals. All it had taken to make a rider out of him had been a few months of getting to know and appreciate those fine animals and - more than - a few tumbles to the ground whenever the horse grew tired of his lack of experience.

Stillness, however...

Porthos was sure that Treville had given him such a dull assignment just to make him suffer the lack of action until he either died or came to accept it as a part of his duties.

The Musketeer was growing more and more certain that death was the most likely outcome, especially if he had to listen to one more boring and trivial conversation between Richelieu and the King, about affairs as dull as the naming of the new prize dog in the King's household.

Beside him, Athos and Aramis seemed to be faring much better, which only added to the big man's annoyance. Aramis' apparent nonchalance at such a torturous assignment could easily be stacked to the man's prior experience, if not as a Musketeer, certainly as a soldier. And Athos...the man seemed eerily at ease in the midst of such a regal environment, almost as if he'd been born to it. Which, for all he knew about the man, he could have.

There had been some rumors circling the garrison about Athos' background and past. Most seemed to agree that he was either high-born or, at the very least, from an influential family. Why the man chose to keep the matter under such a veil of mystery and silence was precisely the reason why the gossip had started, as none of the Musketeers could think of an honorable reason to act in such manner.

It mattered not to Porthos. His past was certainly something that he wished to keep to himself, so it would be nothing short of hypocrisy for him to try and pry into the past of others.

In fact, the former thief thought that such an opinion and stance, shared by Athos and Aramis, played a large part in why the three of them had gravitated towards one another. Each with his own dark memories, happy to keep them to themselves, recognizing and respecting that same want in the others.

Much in the same manner that neither had ever thought to inquire Athos about his upbringing, Porthos had never asked what had possessed such a skilled Musketeer like Aramis to close himself into the garrison's sickrooms or why he had been so vehement about not being called by his name, insisting on answering to René instead. Nor would he ever ask about the reasons that had convinced Aramis to rejoin the regiment. Porthos was just thankful that he did.

The utter dullness of the current assignment lent itself to a certain degree of relaxation and ease, something that the Captain had strongly advised them against. ' _A Musketeer'_ , he had said more than once, ' _is always sharp and on his guard, even if his assignment is nothing more than watching paint dry on a portrait_ '.

The King's antics while trying to shoot imaginary animals, were far more entertaining than drying paint and Porthos, like the others, had been content to just follow the events with a mostly-contained smirk on his face. They were all surprised by the fact that danger, when it was set upon them, had not been directed at the King, but rather came from him.

A trained soldier would have never shot a weapon with one of his brothers in the line of fire. But the King was no soldier.

Aramis had sprinted towards the fallen man and Porthos, after exchanging a concerned glance with the Captain, hurried to follow. There were plenty of Musketeers and Red Guards left to protect the King and the Cardinal; he could well go and assist the wounded man.

He didn't have Aramis' dexterity and knowledge of herbs and ointments, but he had dealt with his fair share of firearm wounds before. The presence of a proper physician in the Court of Miracles had been a miracle in itself and most of the time, the people who lived there had to fend for themselves the best they could. Even if that meant digging out a musket ball with the tip of his fingers or the point of a dagger.

Aramis was already fussing over Poitier, pulling and tearing at his doublet to reach the source of the blood. Poitier, awake and more in control of his wits now that the surprise and shock had somewhat worn off, was trying to push the medic away. "Told you I'm fine, Aramis," he insisted, trying to grab hold of his hands before Aramis could tear another hole in his shirt. "'tis nothing but a scratch!"

At first, Porthos was certain the man was merely too stunned by the shot to understand the seriousness of his own wound, as he had seen happen so many times before. The mind turned sluggish and inattentive to the ailings of the body and a missing limb could go unnoticed even by the sharpest of men. But as he surveyed Poitier's chest with his own eyes, Porthos could see that the ball had indeed only grazed across his left side, forming a shallow groove between his ribs that was, even now, sluggishly bleeding.

Porthos was just about to point that out when he caught a glimpse of his friend's face. Aramis' was paler than Poitier, his eyes wild and frantic, like a scared animal. His fingers, red from where he had touched Poitier's wound, fumbled at the man's neck, pressing harder and harder, like he was searching for signs of life with growing desperation.

Poitier recoiled from the touch, terror entering his eyes as Aramis kept on pressing, entirely missing the fact that the Musketeer was not only alive, but in full control of his senses.

"Help!" Poitier gasped, his voice broken by fear and the pressure on his neck. "For the love of God, help me!"

"Aramis, that's enough," Porthos voiced, silently wondering how his usually observant friend had missed the fact that Poitier was talking, screaming at him. The younger Musketeer, however, seemed deaf to any of their voices. "Aramis..."

Porthos could barely believe what was happening, a stupor that made him react a second too late as Poitier's screams for help grew in volume and attracted the attention of the rest of the hunting party. When he could no longer deny that Aramis was not acting like himself and causing harm to the injured man, the tall Musketeer grabbed hold of his friend's limber shoulders and physically pulled him away from Poitier. "Aramis, stop!"

The other man wasn't listening, mumbling under his breath, faint words that Porthos had to strain to understand. "They're not dead, I can help. They're not dead, I can help. They're not dead, I can..."

"Aramis!"

This time the voice, belonging to Treville, managed to cut through the incessant stream of jumbled words pouring from Aramis' lips. His mouth froze mid-sentence, the rest of the words dying in his throat as Aramis searched his surroundings, his face coloring as he found himself all but sitting on Porthos' lap and with the whole court staring at him.

~§~

Having followed the Captain towards the commotion, Athos was the first to move. He shared a silent stare with Porthos, communicating the urgency to remove Aramis from the scene before more people saw what was happening and the state he was in.

Grabbing hold of one bony wrist, Athos prompted Aramis to his feet, while Porthos supported him from the other side. It was high time they took their friend away from the King's scrutiny.

The Musketeer was pliant and subdued, his body racked with ever-increasing tremors that seemed intent on tearing him apart at the seams.

"We'll see to it that Aramis gets to the garrison, Captain," Athos informed the leader of the Musketeers, receiving nothing but a stern nod in return. Treville did not look pleased.

In the short time he had been with the company, Athos had come to learn that Treville cared deeply for his men. The only thing that surpassed that feeling was his devotion to the King and through it, his protectiveness of the Musketeers' reputation and honor. A display such as this had put the reputation of the entire Musketeer regiment at risk and it was easy to see that the Captain wasn't happy about it. "Your Majesty. Cardinal," Athos acknowledged as he passed the King and Richelieu, both men eyeing Aramis with a displeased air.

"You need to take care that in the future, your men put their duty above their bottle, Treville," Athos heard the King admonish, followed by some reply from the Cardinal that was too soft to be heard but which seemed to elicit the laughter of all surrounding the small group.

Athos could feel his blood boiling inside his veins.

"Like 'e can talk much!" Porthos growled from the other side, clearing having noticed the exchange. "Bunch of drunkards, those Red Guards are!"

From the constant backward glances, it was apparent that Porthos was as eager as Athos to go back and make the Cardinal swallow whatever words of prejudice he had uttered against the Musketeers and their friend.

Between them, Aramis remained silent. He had accepted their support when leaving the rest of the crowd behind, but had quickly shaken himself free of their touch as soon as they were some distance away. The farther they got him, the lesser the tremors that racked his body.

Athos observed him from the corner of his eye. He had some experience with mornings when he had been forced to complete his daily duties whilst nursing an ailing head and stomach, his penance for indulging in too much drink the night before. It was the lesser of two evils for him, really. Either that, or push through the day with no sleep at all because his demons had kept him awake the duration of the night. At least with the bottle, he found some rest.

Aramis didn't look like someone dealing with a night of abusing the bottle, but then again, he could not recall a time when he had seen the other man lose himself to wine. Tipsy, pliable, even musical after drinking spirits, yes, but never truly drunk enough to relinquish control over his surroundings.

What Athos had just witnessed as Porthos was forced to wrestle Aramis away from Poitier was a man who had no idea of where he was or what he was doing. If alcohol was the cause for such behaviour, it was a brand Athos had never tasted before. And such was a thing that he doubt to exist in France.

Furthermore, Aramis had been with them at the tavern the previous night. Athos had seen the ridiculously low amount of wine Aramis had consumed. Unless he had returned to his quarters and consequently drowned in a barrel of wine, there was no reason for him to be the slightest affected.

"Are you well enough to ride?" he asked the silent man walking by his side. Aramis seemed to move in a daze, walking forward until someone told him otherwise. His mind, it seemed, was still very far away.

As if to prove his point, Aramis stared at him, completely at a loss for what to say. "I'm fine," he whispered, his voice hoarse as if it was a struggle to get even those two words out. "Like the King said, shouldn't have indulged in so much wine last night," he added with a faint smile.

Athos exchanged a look with Porthos as Aramis struggled onto his horse. The fact that their friend had found it necessary to lie about what had truly happened did not bode well.

~§~

"Captain, a word," the Cardinal commanded as the other man was about to leave. "Walk with me."

Treville resisted the urge to pull at his hair in a way that would be most unbecoming of a man of his station. He had finally managed to assure the King that the whole unpleasant situation with the 'drunken' Musketeer would be dealt with, and he couldn't wait to return to the garrison and check on the state of his men. Poitier had seemed shaken, but relatively well, even managing to mount his own horse after having his wound properly bound. And Aramis...Treville didn't know what to think of the young man's actions, but he was certain that something was not right.

"How can I be of service, Your Eminence?"

The First Minister stopped, his distance from the rest of the court as calculated as his words. He had no intention of having their conversation reaching unwanted ears. "What do you intend to do about your man, this... _Aramis_?" he asked, his gaze glacial and judging as he waited for an answer.

Treville's eyes narrowed. It wasn't like the Richelieu to take such interest in the matter; he had nothing to gain from it, beyond the immediate and frugal opportunity to make the Musketeers and their Captain look like fools in the eyes of the King. And that he had already taken full advantage of. "What do you mean?"

Richelieu raised a thin eyebrow. "Even by Musketeers' standards, the man is clearly not right in the head and his actions today could have placed His Majesty in grave danger...surely even you can see that he is not fit to serve the King?"

The Captain clenched his jaw to stop himself from answering the Cardinal to the letter. "How I deal with my men is my concern alone," he ground out. "I will see to it that the matter is resolved accordingly."

The Cardinal nodded, resuming his walk. "See that you do," he voiced with an air of profound wisdom. "After all, given recent events, one has to wonder about the presence of unstable minds inside your garrison and what troubles they might have caused."

Treville's blood ran cold. How dare the man speak in such terms when he knew full well the sacrifice that the Musketeers had made in service of their King at Savoy? "What are you insinuating? Speak clearly!"

Predatory eyes landed on him, revealing the cunning politician hiding behind the clerical robes. "There was some kind of attack awhile back, was there not? An explosion…of sorts?" he asked, feigning ignorance. "During questioning, the apprehended culprit implied that he had gained inside help with his ventures...after today's events, one must wonder, no?"

Treville blinked, his anger consumed by curiosity. For three months the Cardinal had kept the criminal in his prison, denying Treville all access. He had no idea that the prisoner had talked. "When were you planning on sharing this information?"

Richelieu gave him a look. "I believe I just did," he pointed out, before turning his robes with a flare and walking away.

"I wish to speak to the man myself," Treville demanded of the retreating figure.

The First Minister didn't stop. "I'll see that it's arranged," he voiced at a distance.

~§~

* * *

More AN:I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my two wonderful and brilliant betas who have made this entire work even remotely readable. **Laurie_bug** , you are absolutely amazing in spotting and fixing all of those horrible grammar and syntax mistakes that I make by the tons; **Jackfan2** , you can turn a sentence around in the most delicious way and no one holds my quivering hand more than you. Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart! This story would not have been possible without either of you ladies!


	2. Chapter 2

~§~

 _Now_

Treville ordered a nearby soldier to fetch water for the lad, if not to refresh him, at least to clean some of the blood off of him. It struck him as odd that the boy had come looking for him personally, but given the current state of affairs, there was little these days that didn't garner such a reaction from him. "Have either of you seen Aramis this morning?" he asked, spotting Athos and Porthos moving towards the group assembled around the child.

Since the _faux pas_ at the King's hunt, Treville had limited Aramis' assignments to a bare minimum, keeping him close to the garrison. While the action could be seen as further punishment, Treville was merely trying to keep the Musketeer close until he could sort out his head. Despite what the King had said - and Aramis himself had confirmed when confronted - the Captain did not believe for one second that the man had been even close to drunk on that day.

The Cardinal's words of contempt, insinuating that he should learn to pick his men better and not open the garrison's gate to any whelp that tried to cross it, had stung. His allegations that Aramis might've even been involved in the attack three months prior did more than sting. They were dangerous and, whispered into the wrong ears, could lead to that young man's downfall, if not of the whole regiment.

Treville could recall the day of the hunt in perfect detail, having found himself satisfied to see Aramis back to his duties, looking focused and at ease, surrounded by his two new-found shadows that seemed to follow him everywhere he went. Treville remembered that he had smelled no wine on Aramis' breath when they had spoken, nor the telltale stench of sickness after drinking too much, so he knew that was not the reason.

He had his suspicions over what might have truly happened. After all, it was not like Treville had never seen similar reactions before. He had been a soldier for more years than he could count, the span of a lifetime in fact. He knew the deep scars that soldiers carried and he knew that, sometimes, the wounds that maimed the most were left unseen by the eye.

He had seen men, brave men, revert to child-like behavior and made barely able to cloth themselves, others too frightened to step outside the door of their quarters. He had seen too many fall victim of their demons, their lives forfeit long after the battle was over.

They all carried the same burden in their souls, the same look in their eyes. Sadly, it was all too similar to the look Treville had recognized in Aramis' eyes.

He had thought them past this, past the shadows of Savoy and the troop of good men claimed by those woods, but he could see now that he had been foolish in believing that. Just because Aramis had agreed to leave the infirmary and rejoin his brothers in their duties hardly meant that his memory had been wiped clean. Treville could now see that, no matter how much Aramis tried, René would always be lurking in the dark, waiting to pull him back down into despair.

As a Captain, the question he needed answered was but one. Could he ask of René the same he expected of Aramis?

~§~

 _Three days before_

Aramis had retreated to his quarters as soon as they had reached the garrison. Clinging to the claim that his head was too sore and pained from wine to entertain company, Athos had found himself pushed outside of Aramis' room, staring at Porthos' equally concerned face.

If the man desired solitude, however, Athos was certainly not one to deny him something that he too cherished.

As they waited for the rest of the regiment to arrive, Athos' thoughts, predictably, veered towards how Treville would deal with the events of that day. As much as he wished to ignore all that had happened and cast a veil of innocence over Aramis' behaviour, the fact remained that the King and Cardinal had witnessed everything and, what was worse, the Cardinal would seek to drip venom into the King's ears over what had happened.

The Cardinal who had no qualms and was no friend of the Musketeers. Instead of a veil of innocence, Richelieu would cast it in the worse possible light and the whole incident would take on a magnitude that could bring dire consequences to the whole regiment.

Something that, Athos was certain, Treville was well aware.

"Treville migh' as well send them stable boys home," Porthos' deep voice cut in through the silence that had stretched for far too long between the two of them. He was still nursing the same cup of wine, a rare thing to be witnessed.

His eyes, Athos could see, were neither on the stables or him, but on the closed window on the second floor of the garrison's main structure. Aramis' quarters. "Why?"

Porthos brought his gaze down to meet his. "Pierre misplaced his cloak last week," he explained. "Treville had'im cleanin' the stables fer three days."

Athos was less optimistic about the outcome of the day. Before he could either agree or disagree with Porthos predictions, they both heard the loud clatter of galloping horses seconds before the yard was filled with Musketeers and their commander. The animals' frothing mouths and heavy breathing creating a shroud of mist amongst the yard. They had ridden those horses hard, to get there in such condition.

Poitier, Athos was relieved to see, was atop of his own horse, looking pale and sweaty but in control of his senses.

"We called for a surgeon," Athos informed Treville as soon as the man had dismounted and left his tired horse in the care of a stable boy. "He should be here shortly. How is Poitier?"

From the look Treville gave him, Athos would have surmised that Poitier was either dead or afflicted by the plague, had he not seen for himself the man being helped into the sickrooms just a moment before.

"Poitier will live. Where is he?" the Captain asked in turn. There was no need to ask who 'he' was. "How is he?"

Athos met the Captain's stern look, wondering how to answer such a question without sounding disrespectful or insolent. Aramis was unstable and lost, lying through his teeth about a drunkenness that had never happened, to cover up something that none of them could fathom and was currently hiding in his room like he was nothing but a small boy. "Ashamed," Athos finally replied, figuring the word explained at least some of his friend's odd behavior.

"Send him to my office," Treville commanded, his expression unreadable.

~§~

Porthos had offered to fetch Aramis, hoping that he could exchange a couple of words with him before Treville had him at his mercy.

From what he had gathered in the few times Aramis opened up about his past, he had been a soldier for years, even before Treville had asked him to join the King's Musketeers. He, like Porthos, was surely no stranger to the type of corporal punishment that some officers were in the habit of using to keep their men under control, particularly in the regiments less populated by noblemen, like the Infantry. With the kind of strong-minded and vocal attitude that Aramis had been shown to possess on more than one occasion, Porthos was sure that his friend had most probably experienced it personally once or twice.

Treville was not one to use violent methods of punishment on his men, as far as Porthos had seen. Musketeers were not common soldiers, they were the King's elite and their code of conduct alone was enough to keep them well-behaved and chivalrous in their actions. Mostly, the Captain's punishments went along what Pierre had endured the previous week.

Despite his words, however, Porthos was afraid for his friend. He knew how those noblemen and kingly people could hold a grudge and make a man pay in blood and tears for sins he had hardly committed. He did not wished to see that happen to Aramis.

"Oy, Aramis! The Cap'ain's asking for you," Porthos called out after knocking, not wanting to find out if his friend would ignore his calling otherwise.

The last Porthos had seen of Aramis, the Musketeer had been pale and subdued, his eyes vacant and cold. As he looked now, searching for any signs of distress, Porthos was dismayed to find that, less than an hour after they'd departed, there was none.

Rather than feel relieved at the sight, Porthos' insides clenched. He knew a mask when he saw one. He had worn them often enough to be familiar with the signs. He just couldn't understand what was so bad that Aramis felt the need to keep it concealed from his closest friends. "How're ya feelin'? Better?"

The smile Aramis offered him was one of the emptiest things Porthos could remember seeing. "I'm about to get an ear full from Treville," he answered lightly. "Can't say that I'm looking forward to it..."

There was no shouting, no sounds of things crashing and being smashed inside Treville's office after Aramis walked in and closed the door behind himself. In fact, there were no sounds at all for a very long time.

When the door finally opened, the sun was about to set, and the coming darkness plotted to conceal both men's expressions until they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Porthos and Athos had found themselves unable to move from the table underneath Treville's balcony, counting the passing minutes and adding their growing numbers to their increasing worry. As they caught sight of Aramis' face, Porthos could not find it in himself to regret that decision.

Aramis was whitewashed, his eyes looking sunken and devoid of life as he looked around the yard.

"Gather the men," Treville ordered as he passed their table. To say that the Captain's face was set on stone was softening the expression. "Now!"

Porthos exchanged a look with Athos, both trying to guess what was to come. Aramis, the only one who could shed some light on the matter, had stopped at the bottom of the steps and remained silent, refusing to meet their eyes. Whatever concern had been churning in Porthos' gut for the past hours, surged like a demon, threatening to devour his insides with fire.

"Most of you already know what happened earlier," Treville started as soon as the regiment had gathered, his voice deep and carrying easily through the small yard. "What Aramis did today was nothing short of an act of severe dereliction of his duty, as his actions placed in needless danger the King's life and that of a brother. More so, he broke his oath as a Musketeer and blemished the regiment's honor."

It was painful to see that most of the garrison seemed to agree with the Captain's harsh words, some even going as far as whistling and calling out insults to the Musketeer about to be punished.

Treville raised his hand, curbing all manifestations of support or otherwise. There was thunder in his gaze as he look at the restless crowd. He was not finished. "Such a thing will not be tolerated in this regiment. Restoration of that honor demands that he be punished in a manner fitting the office for which he serves, the King of France and the Musketeers."

Porthos growled. There was none amongst the regiment who did not take the reputation of the Musketeers very seriously, but surely the Captain and the others could see that Aramis' actions did not deserve such severe punishment? The King was safe, Poitier was on the mend and...

Athos and Porthos both knew that this would not end up in a month of cleaning stalls.

"Remove your doublet, son," Treville ordered, the gentleness of his voice a harsh contrast with the violence of his command. "I'll be as quick about it as I can," he said softly, words meant for Aramis' ears alone, even if Porthos and Athos stood close enough to catch them just as easily.

Aramis nodded, seemingly in a world of his own, his head held high but not actually looking at or seeing anyone. It seemed as if every time his eyes found Porthos in the crowd, Aramis gaze would pass right through him, rather than focus on him. Porthos felt unmaterial, not solid enough to help his friend.

For all of his semblance of poise and composure, Porthos was close enough to see Aramis' fingers trembling as he unbuckled his belts and set them carefully on top of the table, next to the cup of wine Porthos had been unable to finish. Under the watchful eyes of the garrison, the marksman next removed the leather coat and walked slowly to the stalls underneath Treville's office, presenting his back to the Captain and bracing his hands against one of the wooden bars securing the horses.

Porthos was moving forward before he was even aware of his actions. It was Athos' hand, keeping a painful grasp on his arm, that stopped him from going any further. He could see in the other man's blue eyes the same storm he imagined to be brewing in his.

With each passing second, Porthos' heart was thundering inside his chest, stealing his breath away with every painful beat. The usual punishment for a soldier neglecting his duties was forty lashes. Porthos had seen soldiers put through such ordeal, seen the consequences to both their bodies and their minds. He could not iddly stand by and watch as Aramis became one of those men.

"For foolishly endangering King Louis XIII and causing harm to one of his fellow soldiers," Treville announced, his voice carrying easily amongst the heavy silence that had descended upon the garrison, "I sentence the Musketeer Aramis to...twenty lashes," he went on, ignoring the pointed look that Aramis threw his way. "To be carried out immediately."

The only sound brave enough to follow Treville's words was a dog, barking at a distance. Porthos wasn't sure if the rest of the regiment had been struck mute in surprise about the Captain's decision to half the number of lashes, or by the fact that he was actually going to flog Aramis. As much as their commander tried to disguise it, everyone could see that Treville's heart was not committed to subjecting one of his soldiers to such a public humiliation and scolding.

Years of soldiering were ignored, as Porthos could contain himself no longer. He broke free of Athos' hold and moved to Aramis' side, surprised to see that Athos had not only allowed him to move without resistance, but followed him as well.

Treville, to his credit, did not utter a word as both of them walked to Aramis and stood in front of him, giving their friend something to focus other than straw and a horse's backside.

Aramis finally met their eyes and forced a tight-lipped smile on his face. There were so many words of gratitude and complete surprise in his warm eyes that Porthos had to look away, lest he lost what little composure he had left and embarrassed himself in front of everyone. Before he could think much on the matter, Porthos placed his hand over Aramis' right one knowing, instinctively, that Athos would do the same with the left.

Under his touch, Aramis' hand felt as if made of smooth stone, like those life-like statues sculpted by the masters, perfect in every detail in its imitation of the human body, but stiff and ice cold to the touch.

To those watching, the gesture that could almost be confused for an act of restraint, at least for those completely ignorant of the integrity and honor of either one of them. Athos and Porthos would never betray their friend in such a manner, much in the same way that Aramis would never flinch or run away from his punishment. Porthos cared not for what they thought; he and Athos were merely there to offer support to their brother and nothing more.

The white linen shirt Aramis was wearing was thick, in deference to the cold weather. Maybe it would offer some protection against what would follow as well.

~§~

Treville looked lengthily at the table where Aramis had discarded his coat, belts and weapons. His hand hesitated over the two belts, before grabbing the thicker one.

Athos, facing Aramis' anxious face, almost sighed in relief when he noticed Treville's selection. Had the Captain elected to use one of the stable whips or even the thinner, weapons' belt, the resulting damage would be much worse, the marks forever impossible to hide.

Aramis' grace and serenity, which he had been able to maintain stoically while facing the whole garrison, was slowly slipping away now that the only ones who could see him were Athos and Porthos. Athos grasped the fingers under his hand tighter, worried about the amount of tension and stiffness he could feel. Were the Captain to prolong the matter much longer, Athos feared that Aramis would have a couple of broken fingers to add to his abused back.

"Whenever it pleases you," Athos spoke, the words anything but respectful even if his voice remained dry and emotionless. His eyes, he was aware, spoke differently.

Thankfully, Treville did not hesitate or called him out on his insubordination. He removed his own doublet, methodically placing it next to Aramis'.

"Brace yourself," Athos whispered, watching the Captain pull his right arm back.

The first five lashes were more humiliating than painful, Athos could guess as he watched Aramis' closely, the bow of his neck, the tension in his shoulders, the fine tremor of his arms. By the tenth, a soft groan escaped Aramis' closed lips, as he did his best to restrain himself from voicing his pain. Athos knew that, if he kept that up, Aramis was going to bite right through his bottom lip, but there was nothing he could do to stop that. There was nothing he could do to stop any of it.

From the tenth on, skin already tenderized by each of the previous strikes, there was no stopping the agonized gasps that were forced out of Aramis' mouth with each impact, air rushing out from his lungs against his will in a cloud of white. The last five were the only ones that elicited pained grunts, as the Musketeer's knees finally buckled, his energy spent.

When the clamor of leather hitting flesh finally stopped, the only sounds that could be heard inside the garrison were Treville's laboured breathing, Aramis' quiet gasps for breath and the sound of Porthos' fist, hitting the stable's wall.

Athos took a deep, shuddering breath, his gaze trapped by the solitary, thin line of blood that crossed Aramis' back, soaking through his white linen shirt.

Blood seemed to soak faster through white than it did with all other colors, like a hungry beast devouring its favourite treat… Thomas had been wearing white as well. And the beast had consumed him whole.

"See to him," the Captain ordered curtly, dropping the belt to the ground.

~§~

 _Now_

It had been days since that wretched hunt and Treville could still feel the impact of the leather as it connected with Aramis' back. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the young man's failed attempts to remain silent, still see the disapproving glares from Porthos and Athos, and others who'd heartily disagreed with the punishment.

Aramis had retreated into himself afterward, avoiding even the company of those who had stood by his side. In the days since, Treville hadn't given him much to do other than menial tasks inside the garrison, both to keep him out of trouble and give his back some time to heal. The Musketeer would complete his duties with competence and morality, doing his best to ignore the jibes and rude comments from a few of the newer Musketeers, the ones that knew only of René the medic and not of Aramis, the Musketeer. More than once, as Porthos and Athos tired of being ignored and left for the tavern, they still insisted that Aramis join them, but they had always left alone.

So, it was a bit surprising to realize that, as he looked around, Aramis was nowhere to be found within the garrison. Now that Treville thought about it, the man had been conspicuously absent from morning muster as well.

"I am sure he's in his quarters," Athos informed, steadily looking at his commanding officer's face as he, no doubt, lied through his teeth. "Should I send for him?"

Treville gave him a disapproving look. He could understand that Athos and Porthos had not taken lightly to his actions, but that did not give them the right to resort to insolence. "Gustave, Pinon," he barked, gathering the attention of two of the more-seasoned Musketeers. "With me! Athos, Porthos, you too!" he added with a glare. His eyes softened ever so much as his face turned back to the child, greedily drinking from the cup of water. "Now, son...can you take us to the dead man?"

~§~

 _A few hours earlier_

Aramis awoke to the sound of a woman's screams. Loud, brain-piercing screams.

His first instinct was to spring into action as quickly as he could, because for someone to scream at such high pitch, they had to certainly be in mortal danger. Moving, however, awoke a whole new set of pains and aches to join his pulsing head.

Aramis ignored his aching body as best as he could, concentrating on opening his eyes instead. The place he found himself in was barely lit, and for that he was grateful, for he was sure that anything more intense than the feeble beam of light coming from the high windows would surely cause his senses to desert him like cowardly rats. The heavy smell of sour wine in the air was doing no favours to his building nausea.

He was sitting on a rough stone floor, his back supported by a sturdy wooden surface. One of his hands, lying across his lap, loosely grasped the hilt of a bloody dagger, a weapon he could have recognized by touch alone, his _main gauche_. Startled by the sight, Aramis let the blade clatter to the floor. The sound echoed through the large space.

The screams stopped as the woman, a few feet away from him, turned to look at the bloody weapon. "Madame?" Aramis called out, his voice raspy and barely audible. Still, he needed to catch her attention, make her to come to him while he gathered the strength to go to her.

The woman all but jumped into the air, clutching her chest as she spun around to face him. There was nothing but naked terror in her eyes. " _Assassin_!" she screamed again, staring right at him.

Aramis resisted the urge to look behind himself, because he knew there would be nothing there but a wall. It was, however, the sight that had been hidden by the woman's body that caught his attention.

Another man, one whose face looked vaguely familiar, was hanging from the low ceiling by his hands. His head was thrown back, an impossible angle for anyone still drawing breath. The man, however, didn't suffer from that affliction. The obscene slash across his throat, deep enough to glimpse bone, made sure of that.

" _Mamman…_ "

The child's voice, so jarring in the midst of such violent sight, made Aramis flinch. He looked around, searching for the owner of the voice, finally spotting a young boy at the bottom of a set of stairs. He was staring at the dead man, his eyes wide and curious.

Aramis' attention turned back to the woman a second too late. For one stilled moment, he could see up close and in perfect clarity the line of rust and every bulge and furrow on the metal of the shovel she was wielding, before it crashed against his head. The sickening sound it made as it connected was the last thing he heard.

~§~

 _Now_

Porthos was fuming as they traversed the darker streets and alleys of Paris, following the kid. He knew duty came first, and he would never shrink from what was asked of him in service of the King, but sometimes, duty and heart stood at odds with one another and he was left torn and adrift in the middle.

That particular morning, Porthos would rather have been out looking for Aramis, instead of investigating another gruesome crime. It wasn't like the Musketeer didn't sympathize with the boy. He had _been_ that boy, violence too vivid and present in his life for every day he drew breath since losing his mother.

But the fact remained that his friend had not been himself for days now, shifting between mercurial moods that deeply concerned him and Athos. Porthos wasn't quite sure what to make of it and the older Musketeer was of little help. It was like two different people were fighting for sovereignty inside Aramis' head and everyone around was left to guess which of the two was in command at every given moment.

Somedays, Aramis was the accomplished soldier, confident in his skills without distastefully rubbing it in the face of others; he was charming with the ladies and courteous with the men, turning heads in appreciation wherever they went, be it the court or the tavern. He was a good friend, capable of spending his last coin to make sure those around him were left wanting for nothing, even if, as it happened more often than not, he had no coin to spare at all.

Other days...it was like a dark cloud descended upon his mind and it seemed as if the only thing Aramis was capable of was thunder and lightning. Like a storm he was, lashing out at any who dared to come near until all of that energy was spent and all he could do was drag himself back to his quarters and hide from view of the world.

Porthos knew that there was something going on with his friend, something that had been haunting him even before they had become friends, but not for all the drink in the world would Aramis disclose his demons.

Athos was of a mind that they shouldn't push, that Aramis' business was his own, but then again, Athos had as many dark days as Aramis seemed to have.

Porthos was not a man prone to idly sit by and watch a good man destroy himself.

The whole affair at the King's hunt had been just bizarre. Aramis had ridden beside him and Athos the whole way to the hunting grounds. He had been in good spirits, relaxed, even teasing Athos about his shiny, black leather doublet, that made him look so very dashing. He had been as sober as a priest at Sunday mass.

It was impossible to understand what madness had come between Aramis and Poitier for him to act the way he had, but Porthos knew that wine had nothing to do with it.

What he had witnessed when Poitier was wounded, what he had gazed upon when he had pulled Aramis back before he could break Poitier's neck...Porthos had seen the lost look in his eyes, the darkness and fear. The sight had scared him beyond words.

It took him a while to realize it, distracted by anger and frustration over Treville's actions, but eventually Porthos had recognized the look. It was the same one he'd seen the day of the explosion, the same look that would visit Aramis on his stormy days.

Athos had stopped him from barreling into Treville's office after the flogging, looking for explanations for his poor treatment of Aramis. All he had been able to focus at the time was the sickening sound of leather hitting flesh and the sight of Aramis' fingers underneath his, the color of ash, as Aramis pressed his fingernails into the wood to stop himself from screaming. Later, much later, once Aramis had been cared for and forced to sleep, Porthos had been willing to listen to reason.

Putting the King in danger, as Treville was calling it, was tantamount to treason, which was punishable by death. While all of that was true, Porthos thought that was a rather dramatic interpretation of what had truly happened. After all, he had been standing right next to Aramis as he had pushed away the musket in the King's hands, after he had already fired it, which meant that the King had never been even remotely at risk. But the King was the King, and Porthos was well aware that even a sneeze in His Majesty's presence could be seen as an assassination attempt, particularly if there was a bout of Influenza running around.

And then, of course, there was the fact that Aramis had scared poor Poitier with his actions, not that King and court gave much importance to that. The rest of the regiment, however...

Poitier truly believed that Aramis would've killed him, had Porthos not intervened. Porthos wasn't entirely certain himself that the man wasn't right.

While Athos, too, had been aggravated by the Captain's treatment of Aramis, he, at least, had kept a calm head about it, enough to understand that solving the matter within the garrison had spared Aramis from being taken to the Châtelet. Or worse, the noose.

Relationships had become strained after that.

The Captain would only address them to give out orders, ignoring all of their attempts to talk about what had happened. And Aramis simply ignored them.

The previous night, after days of silence, Porthos had finally reached the end of his endurance. He had decided to confront Aramis about what was happening, only to find his quarters empty. And empty they remained still when he had returned that morning, the bed and linens undisturbed.

Athos had assured him that they would find Aramis, drunk in some forgotten tavern, but Porthos wasn't so sure. Aramis wasn't like that.

"'tis here!" the boy announced, bringing the whole group to a halt. The inn was little more than a private house with probably a pair of rooms to spare. A wooden goose figurine, painted black, hung above the door, announcing the fine establishment to be _The Wild Goose._

' _A proper wild goose chase_ ," Porthos bitterly thought to himself. The place was as foul-looking as it was foul-smelling, the kind of establishment people frequented to either lose their purse or their life. Sometimes both.

He had known plenty of places like _The Wild Goose_ back in the day. The kid was probably just some scoundrel's paid bait, hoping to lure a lone Musketeer in there to relieve him of his coin and weapons. It was a good thing that the Captain had decided that no crime was too small to use the Musketeers in force and there were five of them there.

Their group stood out among the few patrons drinking inside. At least two, Porthos noticed with a smirk, had taken a look at the pauldrons on their shoulders and scurried away through the back door, suddenly reminded of some important business elsewhere.

"Ah, _Messieurs_!" a woman, wearing a dirty apron around her waist, called from the other side of the room, standing next to a small door partially hidden under the short flight of steps that led to the floor above. Upon seeing her, the little boy broke rank and raced to her side, burrowing his face in her skirts. "He's this way," she beckoned, a metal shovel grasped in her hand. The back of the blade was slightly dark, glinting with fresh blood. "I've tied 'im up for ya."

Porthos exchanged a confused look with Athos. Had she just said that she'd tied up the dead man? What was she expecting him to do? Rise up and walk?

"Down there?" Treville inquired. From the look on his face, he wasn't finding much sense in the whole matter either. At the woman's nod, he gently pushed her away. "Leave it to us, then."

~§~

There was a reek of mold and sour wine in the air as they descended the stairs that Athos found extremely unpleasant. The acrid scent of blood, however, soon overwhelmed everything else.

The place was poorly-lit and the thought of an ambush was on everyone's mind, obvious from the way each man was cautiously making his way down, hands hovering nervously over their weapons.

They saw the strung-up man first. His body sagged against the bonds on his wrists, the hands trapped above, already blackened and starting to decay. There was a large blood stain covering the front of his shirt and part of his breeches, the source being the obvious gaping wound on his throat.

"That would be our dead man, then," Athos noted dryly. It was clear to see that, whatever had happened here, it had not been any sort of drunken disagreement. This had been an execution, possibly preceded by torture for information.

Gruesome as the sight was, it was the second body that surprised them for they had not expected someone else in the room…much less for it to be someone that they could so easily recognize.

"Aramis!"

Porthos was the first to run to their friend's side, hurriedly taking off his gloves and tossing them on the floor. Aramis was lying on his side, hands tied behind his back, eyes closed and motionless. As Porthos slipped one hand to the side of his friend's head, to lift him up, he recoiled in horror, displaying fingers painted in blood for all to see. "Who did this?" he growled, his eyes fixing on the woman who had followed them downstairs. "Wha's it you?"

"Caught 'im red-handed, I did, after me boy warned me about these happenings," the woman announced proudly. "T'is an honest establishment I run. He had no business comin' here to do his murdering."

Porthos cursed under his breath, earning himself a stern look from the Captain.

Athos moved closer. Aramis had yet to respond to any of Porthos' insistent calls, stubbornly remaining senseless and unable to defend himself from the vile accusations being cast upon his honor. A bloody dagger lay discarded nearby, and with a pang of apprehension, Athos recognized it as Aramis' _main gauche,_ the ornamented pommel too elaborate and refined to be mistaken for anyone else's.

"Tell us what happened, Madame," Treville prodded, expertly moving to place himself between Porthos and the woman, picking up the bloody weapon as he went. He twirled it in his hands, his eyes sparking in recognition as well.

"T'is as I told you," she said, grabbing a fistful of her apron to wipe her nose. She didn't seem all that affected by the gory sight in her basement, just slightly annoyed by the disturbance it was causing. "Came down here t'fetch more wine and found that one," she went on, chin pointing in Aramis' general direction, "just sittin' here, bloody knife in his hands, fresh out of killin' that one, like'im was just havin' a rest after slitting his throat," she nodded towards the hanging man. "Bloody heartless, that's for sure."

Athos found himself moving closer to his friends, as if to protect Aramis from the woman's words. On the floor, Porthos was clenching at Aramis' clothes, his hands turning into fists against his own volition, knuckles begging to smash something. He was not one to hit a woman, Athos was certain of that, but the words coming out of that mouth were making it hard for all of them to keep to their code of honor.

"And then?"

"I hit 'im with a shovel, that's what I did," she announced proudly, waving her weapon around as if to prove her point. "Wasn' gonna let 'im have his wicked way with me too, was I?"

"I've heard enough," Porthos announced, his voice deep as a grumbling mountain. Setting out to do what he should've done as soon as he had reached his friend, the large man reached for his own _main gauche_ , intending to cut Aramis' hands free.

"No," Treville said, the word almost a whisper, but carrying far in the enclosed space.

Porthos looked up, confused. Athos followed his gaze. Certainly the Captain hadn't believed a word that vile woman had said, had he?

"Cap'ain?"

"We have a bloody dagger and a body, gentlemen," Treville said, choosing to ignore the plea underneath Porthos' question.

He had also, Athos was pleased to notice, ignored the fact that they also had a witness to the crime, no matter how much the innkeeper claimed that she had seen everything. The only part Athos believed to be true was that she had discovered Aramis sitting next to a dead man. Suspicious, certainly, but there was hardly such a thing as a conviction of murder by proximity to the corpse.

"Until we can determine what truly happened here, we have no other _choice_ but to see to it that the King's justice is respected," the Captain determined.

"But..." Porthos started, only to be met with the Captain's angry face inches from his.

"That is a direct order!" he barked, blue eyes hard as steel. "You two will remain here and accompany the body to the morgue," he added, some of his temper contained. "Gustave, Pinon and myself will see to it that Aramis is taken to the brig, where a physician can have a proper look at him."

Porthos opened his mouth to protest one more time. Athos reached for him before he could make any more trouble for himself. Still fuming, Porthos traded Treville's scolding eyes for Athos' calmer ones. Athos could pinpoint the exact moment when the big Musketeer calmed down enough to realize what both Athos' eyes and Treville's curt words were truly saying.

No matter how much they wanted to make sure that Aramis was safe and would be treated fairly, Athos and Porthos could do more for him by following the Captain's orders. If there was a place where they could begin to find answers to the whole situation, that place was right here.

~§~

AN:A huge thank you to Laurie_bug and Jackfan2 for their wonderful work!


	3. Chapter 3

~§~

Treville closed the door behind himself before moving to his desk and dropping into his chair, feeling every bit like a man twice his age. The bottle of brandy was still more than half full, but as he poured himself a glass, the Captain knew he wouldn't be able to stop there and that bottle would not suffice.

What a mess.

He had never been a terribly religious man, but given the current state of affairs, Treville had to wonder if his lack of piety had brought God's wrath upon his roof. As a basic rule, he hated to agree with the Cardinal, but what sort of Captain could he really call himself if he kept losing men like sand between his fingers?

First Savoy, then the explosion, and now this whole...

As a Captain he could not let his heart rule his decisions and had no choice but to force himself to look at the facts as they were presented to him. Aramis' erratic behavior, the bloody blade found with him and that woman's certainty that Aramis had been the one to use it...it all painted a very clear image.

The man himself seemed unwilling to proclaim his own innocence. When Aramis had finally regained his senses, after the physician had forced him to inhale some sort of vile-smelling mixture, he had inquired as to why he was imprisoned, looking more confused than worried.

The blow to the head, courtesy of the overzealous innkeeper, seemed to have robbed him of any memories of the events of the last few hours, which did nothing to help matters. The Captain had refrained from offering too many details to the injured man, not wanting to influence his memories in any way, should they ever return, but it was clear to see the doubt and fear in Aramis' eyes when he was told that a man had been killed and that he and his weapon were the only things found nearby.

It was that doubt, more than anything, that had made Treville leave the brig in a foul mood and take refuge in his office.

The brandy burned his throat as he swallowed, giving his mind something else to focus rather than the present situation. He was pouring a second glass when there was a knock on the door. "Come!"

Athos' face was composed and without judgment as he eyed the glass and bottle on the Captain's desk. Treville picked up another glass and poured him a drink. Athos had grown close to Aramis, and even though he was not one to show it, the situation had rattled him as well.

The man accepted the drink with a gracious nod, downing the whole contents in one swallow.

"What news?"

Athos set the glass on the desk, facing his commander with a steady gaze. "The man was an escaped convict," he offered. "There were irons marks around his left ankle, and when we went about looking for information on the matter, we discovered him to be one Gerard Gillion," he stopped, giving the Captain time to recognize the implications.

Treville frowned. The name sounded all too familiar... "One of the men who tried to blow up my garrison?"

Athos nodded, grimly. "He was reported missing from his cell yesterday evening," he added. "None of the Red Guards on watch seemed to know how he managed that, but one did mention that there had been a Musketeer there, visiting around the same time."

"Aramis?" Treville asked, surprised at this turn of events. What a peculiar coincidence, that the Cardinal, after months of denying him access to the prisoner, would have granted him an audience on the eve of the man's escape and ultimate assassination.

"The guard did not say," Athos supplied, his face contorting in disgust. "It would seem that, for him, all Musketeers look the same."

"And Gerard?"

Athos' hand fisted around the hilt of his sword. "The slashed throat was what killed him, of course," he reported. "Other than that and the scar Aramis gave him during their fight, there were no wounds to be found on his body."

"At all?" the Captain asked, suspicion growing in his mind. "Not even on his wrists?"

Athos gave him a pointed look. "What are you implying?"

Which, in a sense, Treville knew to be deserved. In the time the former Comte had served in his regiment, it had been easy to become reliant on the man's fastidious and meticulous reports. If it wasn't mentioned, then it never happened.

"Just now, when we took the ropes from Aramis' wrists, the skin was already red and raw," the Captain explained. "And he hadn't been hanging from them."

Athos' eyes lit with understanding. "No rope marks, which means they were placed _after_ Gerard was already dead," he voiced. "But that still doesn't tell us who killed him. Or why."

The Captain nodded. It was, after all, the crux of the matter, even though they didn't venture to say it out loud. They were out to find who had killed Gerard, all hoping that such a road would not lead them back to Aramis.

"There was one thing though," Athos let out, a sly smile on his lips. "No blood."

"What do you mean?" Treville asked. He had seen plenty of blood painting the murdered man's clothing.

"No blood on the floor, and none on the walls," Athos clarified. "When was the last time you saw a man have his throat slashed open and not leave a ample evidence around himself?"

 _'Never,'_ Treville thought, knowing there was no need to voice it. As Captain of the Musketeers he had stood witness to countless executions, not all of them by the noose. When someone lost their head, it was a gory sight indeed. And one that left its crimson marks on everything surrounding the executed. Including the executioner. "No blood on Aramis either." Athos was right. That cellar had been entirely too clean and unless Aramis had found the time to change his clothes, he was not his murderer. "Gerard wasn't murdered there," Treville concluded.

"He was not."

~§~

Aramis pulled his knees up to his chest and curled his arms around them. The position pulled at the welts in his back, but he didn't much care about such small discomfort. He was cold, shivering through his layers of clothing, teeth chattering inside his mouth no matter how hard he clenched his jaw to prevent them from making such an eerie noise.

The Captain had been kind enough to allow him to keep his doublet and his arms free of chains, but that was as much mercy as Aramis knew he'd get in a prison cell. The floor was damp despite the straw covering it, and the stone walls held no warmth or comfort. A bucket, left in the darkest corner of his cell, smelled like it hadn't been emptied since the last occupant of the place had used it and the cot had a slash across its middle, straw spilling out like a gutted fish. It smelled of one too.

Even though he knew getting to his feet and walking would make him warmer, Aramis possessed neither the strength nor will to do so. His limbs felt like they were filled with lead, heavy and stiff as cannon balls.

He let his head drop to his bent knees, feeling a small amount of relief as his neck stretched and the pounding between his ears abated some. His mind, however, would not be at ease, not enough for him to find proper rest.

Aramis had barely felt the sting of the surgeon's needle as he stitched his head, his ears ringing with the Captain's words as he tersely told him what was going on. Aramis had almost been able to see faith and duty, battling inside Treville's eyes, as the Captain presented him with facts that painted Aramis as a cold blooded killer.

Terror like none he had felt before had taken hold of Aramis' heart at the time. What if his mind had become so lost, so beyond saving, that he had taken a life without knowing? How could the Captain place any faith in him when Aramis could hardly have faith in himself?

There were times, he was aware, when his thoughts were not his to command. Moments when his mind would wander without his consent and present him with visions and memories he would rather bury and forget. Stretches of time where he did not know where he was or what he was doing. It would all seem so real, as tangible as reality itself, down to the smell of gunpowder and blood and the feeling of cold against his skin...

For a number of months now, ever since the events of Savoy, Aramis had come to realize that he could not trust his mind as he had once before. Like a drunkard who tells all of his secrets under the sway of the wine and doesn't remember doing so when his mind clears. Or a possessed man who speaks in tongues he shouldn't be able to understand.

Once more, he tried to force his mind to recollect the events of the past day, but everything beyond the evening meal was nothing but a blur. He remembered Serge telling him that supper was to be roasted turnips, something he knew Aramis disliked fiercely, making him decide to go find his meal elsewhere. He remembered going to a nearby tavern, where the meals were light on the pocket and hearty on the stomach. Try as he might, he could not recall what he had eaten there… or even if he had reached the tavern at all.

Why couldn't he remember that meal? Or going back to his rooms? Maybe...

Unbidden, Aramis' mind went back to the hunt. He remembered the King's failed shot with his musket, he remembered Poitier falling on the snow and after that...after that his mind was a blank until the moment he had arrived back at the garrison.

From the wisps of conversation around him, and the venomous looks the others at the garrison sent his way, Aramis had been able to gather that, instead of helping Poitier, he'd almost killed the man. His heart had frozen at the discovery and he had walked in a daze for hours, a stupor that not even the Captain's punishment had been able to break. And still he couldn't remember a thing...

Aramis ran his hands through his hair, wincing when his fingers brushed against the fresh stitches. What was he supposed to do with himself when he no longer knew who he was?

How could he defend himself when he was no longer sure if he was a Musketeer or a murderer?

The sound of heavy footsteps pulled him from the swirling thoughts inside his head. He was grateful for the distraction, as his thoughts were leading him nowhere and only succeeding in making his head hurt all the more fiercely.

Porthos was carrying a torch, its flickering flames casting waves of light and darkness outside Aramis' cell. He hadn't even noticed that, outside, the sun had begun to set.

"Aramis," Porthos whispered as he stopped in front of the locked door. "How are ya, m'friend?"

Aramis would have laughed at the question, but such a reaction would probably make him look more deranged than what he already felt. "It's bigger than my quarters at the garrison," he said with a strained smile, extending his arms to show how much room he had.

Porthos didn't look like he was fooled by the display at all. "Yer head?"

Aramis unconsciously brushed his fingers across the fresh stitches. "Still attached, for now."

It was of poor taste to make jest about something like that in his current situation. Aramis regretted the words almost as soon as they left his mouth, watching as Porthos' face lost its color and the torch trembled in his hands. "I'm sorry, _mon ami_ ," he hurried to say, struggling to his feet. "My mouth, like my mind it would seem, fails to obey me sometimes."

"We'll get ya out of 'ere," Porthos offered fervently. "No innocent man should suffer these conditions!"

Aramis followed his friend's gaze to the thin window high above their heads before looking down. A candle, almost at the end of its life, was the only other source of light inside the cell. "And a guilty one?" he found himself asking, keeping his face turned as he dared not see Porthos' reaction to his words. If he were to catch any shadow of doubt in the other man's dark eyes, Aramis knew that whatever was left of his hope and sanity would flicker away, like the dying candle.

Porthos said nothing, the silence stretching until Aramis could stand no longer the thump of his own heart and the coil of his stomach. He slid back down, taking advantage of the wall to support his descent, and returned his aching head to his knees. "You should go," he whispered, shamed by the break in his voice. He was not a child; he would not shed any tears over his damned life.

A hand touched his arm, startling Aramis. He looked down to find Porthos' strong fingers grasping the leather of his doublet. The tall Musketeer had fallen to his knees outside the cell, arm stretched through the bars to reach his friend. The touch did more to dispel the cold than his own warm clothing.

"Ya didn't kill tha' man!" Porthos said, his voice strong and sure. "Plenty of Musketeers hated his guts for what he did, any f'them could've seen fit t'defend the Musketeers' honor!"

Aramis blinked at those words. Why would the Musketeers hate...When his mind supplied the answer, Aramis pulled away from Porthos' hand, getting to his feet in one fluid movement.

The attack on the garrison had happened just a few months before, only one of the assailants left alive in the aftermath of the explosion and the fight in the sick rooms. Aramis could remember the man's face in perfect detail, from the color of his eyes to the faulty patch of beard on the left side of his face.

The same face came to him now, drained of color everywhere but the ugly gash across his throat, hands hanging limp and blackened above his head.

Unable to control his body, Aramis could only hold on to the wall for support as he emptied his stomach on the floor. Porthos' concerned voice, calling out his name, eventually managed to cut through the fog of dry-heaving.

"Aramis? Shit, mate...do ya need me t' fetch a guard?"

Aramis managed to control his nausea long enough to take a shaky breath, holding out his hands to stop Porthos from calling anyone. It was bad enough that he had lost his composure so thoroughly in front of his brother. "I'm good," he croaked, his voice broken by the vile aftertaste in his mouth.

"If tha's good, I don't wanna see bad," Porthos hissed. "'m callin' that physician back! Did he even take a proper look at your head?"

"Peace, my friend," Aramis called out. "I just...remembered something."

Those words stopped Porthos faster than any plea. "From today? Ya remember wha' happen'?"

Aramis bit at his lip, unwilling to show how much Porthos' enthusiasm robbed him of faith in himself. No matter how much the other man spoke of his support and belief that Aramis was not to be blamed for that man's death, that thirst to know what had happened gave him away as having doubts. "Not much...I remembered the murdered man," Aramis confessed. "I remember waking up and seeing him."

"Alive?"

Aramis shook his head, wincing at the movement. "He was already dead."

Porthos' hand reached through the bars, patting his arm. "It'll come to ya," he said. "Will ya be alright?"

Aramis covered the supporting hand with his own, taking comfort in the warm skin. "What other choice do I have?"

~§~

"How is he?" Athos asked, as he descended the steps from Treville's office. Porthos joined him at the bottom, both moving to sit at the wooden table. The midday meal was long gone, but neither was finding food particularly appealing.

Porthos leaned his head on his hands, rubbing his head vigorously, like he wanted to scratch his brain. "Not so good," he relayed. "He can't remember wha' happened and-"

"And?" Athos prodded, his blue gaze intense as he watched the other man. Porthos, Aramis and himself had become close for nearly three months now, and even though it felt like he had known these two men his whole life, he was aware that there was still much he did not knew about either.

"He thinks he might've done it," Porthos whispered, looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to their conversation.

"And you?" Athos asked, point-blank. There was really no reason to circle the matter. The only one who could be offended by the question wasn't there. "Do you think he could have done something like that?"

Porthos studied his hands, fingers interlaced on the table top. "Aramis is a man of honor, I trust'im with my life… but ya were there, at the hunt," he started, biting his lip. "Ya saw what happen'...wha' _almost_ happen'..."

Athos nodded. He had only reached them after Porthos had pulled Aramis away from Poitier, but he hadn't missed the empty stare in the younger man's eyes. It was like the body was there, but the spirit was absent. "We've seen it before," he reminded the taller Musketeer.

Porthos sighed. Of course he remembered. "Do ya think it's some kind of affliction?" he wondered. "Like a fit or somethin'?"

Athos pondered the matter. There had been a servant at his parents' house that had been a former soldier. The man performed his duties without flaw, but for some reason, whenever he saw a string of sausages, he would lose the contents of his stomach and would answer to no one calling out to him for more than a day. The look in his eyes was very similar to what he had seen in Aramis'. He tried to remember the name of the servant, but all that Athos could seem to recall was that he had ended up taking his own life during one of those...episodes. "I think...you should find out more about who this Gerard was and what motives were behind his actions."

"Why?"

"Because until Aramis remembers his part in the events, Gerard's motives and reasons are all that we have."

~§~

Treville stared at the crack in the wall in front of his desk, next to his cot. It had always been there, but the explosion of three months before had made it wider, the cob layer peeling and eroding like dry skin. With so many buildings in need of repair and the King's lesser disposition to finance the repairs, it had been left behind in deference to other, more important things.

Gerard, the only one left from the three attackers that had brought such destruction to his garrison, was dead, and Treville could not shake the feeling that he was missing some important fact about the whole matter.

At the time, he had been beyond furious that the Cardinal had robbed him of his chance to find out the truth from the villain's own mouth. Treville, however, had not been idle, not when Musketeers' lives had been lost.

As covertly as possible, the Captain had launched his own investigation. It hadn't taken much effort -a stroke of luck, one might call it- for him to discover why there had been a group of Red Guards standing outside the garrison at the time of the explosion.

They hadn't been there to gloat. They had been waiting for their companions, the men lighting the fuse. The Cardinal's men.

It could not be a coincidence that Gerard's death happened so soon after the Cardinal's accusations about a traitor in the midst of the Musketeers. Had those accusations been about any other man other than a Musketeer -or had in fact come from any other mouth other than the Cardinal's, with his loose interpretations of the truth- Treville would've been tempted to see the logic in a criminal disposing of the man who had supposedly been his accomplice in the garrison's attack. But the Captain knew better.

Even so, he felt with all his heart that he was still missing an important piece of the puzzle.

His eyes were fixed on the ugly crack but his mind was far away, replaying the events of that day months ago, when he had caught the three men, red-handed, in the armory, a lit fuse leading to the pile of gunpowder barrels.

At the time, it was easy to assume that their only purpose had been to blow up the garrison, but that made little sense. Such number of barrels would have been hardly enough to blow up a structure as big as the Musketeers' barracks, and even if every single building had been consumed by the blast, what was there to gain from it?

Treville thought back to that day. Three men had managed to pass unnoticed all the way to the armory, at the heart of the garrison's grounds. Three men do a job that one could have easily accomplished.

Treville hadn't been in his office much that day, he remembered, too busy on the yard, watching the tryouts for the new men and then he had returned to his desk to deal with some pending paperwork...

Treville blinked. He had arrived at his office to find it in complete disarray, papers scattered everywhere...In the light of the events that followed, he had completely forgotten about the state his desk had been in prior to the explosion.

Three men, not to light a single fuse, but to search his quarters for something. What could those men have possibly have been looking for?

It was unlike him to keep secretive documents at his desk, or anywhere in his office, for that matter. Anything of a delicate nature was swiftly dealt with to avoid it falling into the wrong hands. In his cabinets he kept only information pertinent to his men and mission files -

The Captain's blood turned to ice in his veins. It couldn't possibly be, could it?

Pushing his chair hastily away, Treville opened the cabinet where he kept all of the mission files since the beginning of the Musketeer regiment. They were organized by year, but he didn't need to look far. The particular document he was searching for had only be added some months before. The mission to Savoy.

Maps, lists of supplies, members of the troop sent on the exercise, of the dead...It was gone. It was all gone.

~§~

Uncovering the origins of a particular person was not an easy task when most people didn't even have a scrap of paper stating who they were or when they'd been born. Outside of nobility, few care about such matters. It also made it easier for any who chose to -or needed to- change their life completely, to re-invent themselves as whomever they chose to be.

Porthos had some experience in that matter. He could barely remember his mother, deprived of her company since too early an age. He had been left with no one else able to give him answers to the simple questions of a man's existence, like the day he had been born, or the name of the place his mother had been born and stolen away from, or even who his father was.

What little he knew of his mother could be surmised more like to a compilation of unfairness and harshness than the life of the brave and joyful woman that she had been. His mother, Mbali, had been a freed slave who had come to Paris in search of a new, better life. Instead, she had found herself taking refuge in the Court of Miracles with a small child in her arms, forced into a life of misery because she had had nowhere else to go.

She had been a tall, beautiful woman, Porthos remembered that much, even if pain and suffering had bent her body into that of an old lady, despite her young age. A devout woman, his mother had decided to change her name to Marie when she arrived in Paris. The commoners grave where she had been laid after the fevers took her had said nothing of who she was or what she called herself.

Of his father, he knew even less, certainly not enough to have a last name that he could claim as his own, if he would ever feel inclined to honor in such a manner a man who had abandoned him and his mother to their fate. Which he would not.

Porthos knew full well where he was from and where he had learned all of his life lessons. The streets of the Court, for those who lived there, were like ravines, treacherous and steep and deadly to those who walked in their shadows. When he had joined the infantry and his commander had asked for a name for his records, Porthos had known exactly what to answer. He was from the ravines, du Vallon.

Unlike most, Porthos had no idea about the specific day or month he had been born, even if he knew well enough the day he had become who he had been born to be. For him, that was his birthday, the day he had joined the Musketeers. And it was a day he would celebrate every year for as long as he drew a breath.

Thus, knowing how easily one could change their name and paste, Porthos was not the most optimistic about their quest.

Finding a dead man's past was not an easy task at all. The body had been left unclaimed in the cold vaults underneath the city, at the 'house of the dead', so there was no one from the man's former life to talk to. The guards at the prison had never seen anyone visit and the man himself had never mentioned a family or even a mistress.

Still, there had to be someone in the world who had known him, had some sort of relationship with him. Such was the human nature, to form relationships. But if there were any, they were having no success in finding them.

"What about the other two men?" Athos asked, following the monk in charge of preparing the bodies for the afterlife. "From the explosion at the garrison," he explained. "Did someone come to claim them?"

"What were their names again?" the monk asked, his small figure moving amongst the rows of tables with dead bodies like he was walking through beds of fresh vegetables. How he could cope with the smell was anyone's guess.

"Jacques and..." Athos said, his mind stumbling on the second name.

"Etienne," Porthos supplied.

The monk picked up a large, leather-bound book and carried it closer to a candle before opening the thick pages. "Let me see here...ah! Yes," the monk let out, his dirty finger following a particular line of elaborate handwriting. "Jacques Bennoit was given a commoner's burial, but young Etienne...his mother showed up to claim him."

"Her name?" Porthos pressed, looking over the shoulder of the monk to read himself.

"Cussac," the monk supplied, giving Porthos an annoyed look. "Juliet Cussac."

~§~

"'Tis this one!"

Aramis looked up as the voice sounded right outside his prison cell. On the other side of the bars stood four Red Guards holding torches, looking at him with matching sneers.

"What do you want?" he asked, rising to his feet, defensively. He was not in a mood to deal with their nonsense, nor did he cared for their reasons to be there. Usually, the rivalry between Musketeers and Red Guards was kept under a pretense of chivalry by the presence of an audience. In this dark place, there was no one to see.

"We have orders, from the Cardinal," one the guards said, waving a piece of rolled paper like it was a white flag. "You're to come with us."

Aramis felt cold sweat run down his back. Bleak as his situation was at the moment, at least in the brig he was under the authority of his Captain, a man who he respected and knew to be honorable. If he was taken somewhere else... "Where will you be taking me?" he asked, watching hopelessly as the nervous jailer opened the door to his cell. "Where are we going?"

The Red Guard sniggered, grabbing his arm hard enough to bruise. "You'll soon find out, Musketeer."

"I demand to speak with the Captain before going anywhere with you lot!" Aramis voiced, pulling away and retreating to the back of the cell, his arms raised in a show of surrender that belied his words. The last thing he wanted was to give the Red Guards any excuse to turn the situation into violence.

The guards simply smirked, producing a length of chain and a burlap sack to dangle in front of him. "Ah...the murderer thinks he has rights," one of them said, making it sound like the most endearing thing he had ever listened to. His eyes hardened to steel as he took a step closer. "Ya can either come with us quiet as a mouse or muzzled like a dog. Yer choice," he voiced, the heavy chains swinging in his hand as he moved forward. "Personally, I'm more of a dog person..."

Aramis ground his teeth to stop himself from answering the provocation. There were four of them against him, but the cell was small, undoubtedly bound to hinder their movements and make them less inclined to draw their swords, for the risk of striking each other rather than him.

It was a disadvantage on their part that could greatly help him. Perhaps, it would even be enough to give him time to alert the Captain to what was happening.

He attacked first, right hand swinging to the faces of the two men in front of him, knocking one across the ear and pushing the other's face to meet the hard wall. His leg followed his body's rotation to kick the guard holding the chains to his left. The fourth one, encumbered by the other two tumbling in front of him, had neither time nor space to react as Aramis moved back and flung his elbow into the stunned man's face.

The guard grabbed at his nose, howling in pain as blood spurted from between his fingers. Aramis allowed himself a quick smirk of satisfaction, before he saw the man's eyes widen in pure terror.

The Musketeer turned in a lightning-fast movement, his right arm coming up to protect his face on pure instinct. He was, however, already too late.

There was nothing but murderous intent in the guard's eyes as he swung the chains with all of his strength, not caring about anyone caught in the middle.

The length of iron hit Aramis' forearm hard enough to shatter bone, sending him to his knees, gasping in pain and clutching at his arm.

The guard behind Aramis wasn't so lucky, as the links struck him on the side of the head, pushing bone inside. His lifeless corpse fell on top of Aramis, sending the two of them tumbling in a mess of limbs to the floor.

"You'll pay for this, Musketeer!" one of the guards snarled, kicking at the fallen prisoner.

Aramis, however, registered little of that. He barely reacted when the remaining guards used the bloodied chains to secure his hands behind his back, heedless of his broken arm, and pulled the stiff burlap sack over his head. In the near suffocating constriction of the rough cloth, he saw only the dead eyes of the guard, staring back at him from the snow of his memories, foe and friend switching faces like it was some kind of perverse game.

His boots trailed across the floor as the guards dragged him away, the well-worn leather scraping against old stones until they hit the street. Fresh air caressed his skin, making Aramis shiver.

His senses returned slowly, as he registered the smell of wood and horse. He could hear voices at a distance, the blabbering noises of men outside some tavern. They were moving him out in the dead of the night, a shrouded action that made Aramis' insides churn for what it meant.

~§~

AN: Mbali, the name I completely made up for Porthos' mother, means Flower in Zulu, one of the many Bantu languages in South Africa.

AN2: As always, my gratitude goes to my two wonderful and brilliant betas Laurie_bug and Jackfan2, for making this readable. Any lingering mistakes are of my doing.

AN3: For those of you reviewing and who I'm unable to reply by PM – THANK YOU! UKGuest, Jmp and Guest, I loved your words!


	4. Chapter 4

Thank you so much to all of you reading and keeping me company with this story! I hope you're all having a great festive season and wish you a fantastic 2016! See you all next year ;)

PART IV

~§~

Treville navigated the labyrinth of Paris' city streets with an ease born of experience. He had walked that same path many times before.

Gaston was an old friend, a comrade in arms that had followed Treville's choices when he had been asked to lead the King's Musketeers. The two of them went a long way back, at a time when they, along with General De Foix and Belgard, formed a brotherhood of their own, inseparable in everything until life had forced them to go their separate paths. In some ways, the newly formed friendship between Athos, Aramis and Porthos reminded Treville of his own youth and the bond he had shared with the men he regarded as brothers in everything but blood.

Gaston had been one of the two men that Treville had trusted to travel alongside him when he had ridden to Savoy in search of his troop of Musketeers. He had resigned his commission shortly after returning from the site of the massacre, evoking that weariness of heart and soul had rendered him unable to serve. The other man, a Musketeer named Poison, had been killed on an ambush, one week after returning from Savoy.

Which left Gaston the only man alive, aside from Treville himself, to know exactly what had happened in those frozen woods and the name of the sole survivor they had brought back.

Treville didn't believed for one second that his friend had betrayed his trust on such a vital matter, but the missing papers from the mission pressed him to cover all possibilities. He could not stand to think of the implications his actions could bring if the Cardinal had even the slightest of suspicions on the subject.

Treville searched the empty street before knocking on the door and waited, eyeing the blue paint peeling from the wood. The windows on the floor above were broken, some boarded with planks of wood, the rest covered with cloth. There were no clothes hanging on the line outside and the chimney was devoid of smoke. If not for the sounds coming from inside the house, Treville would have believed that his friend was not home at all.

Gaston had retired from the Musketeers with a good sum of money in his pockets, enough to live the rest of his life in comfort. It seemed odd that the man would have left his home fall into such a state of disarray and poverty. Less than a year had passed, and yet, with everything that had been going on, Treville realized that he had not seen the man once during that time.

"Wha' do ya want?"

Treville looked down at the petit old woman peeking from behind the door. Her frizzy hair was abundant enough that the Captain couldn't catch a glimpse above her head to peek inside the house. "I'm looking for Lucien Gaston," he announced. "He used to live here."

"Still does, I s'ppose," the woman said, wrinkling her nose as if offended by some nasty smell. "Never see the bastard around when it's time to pay the rent anyway..." she added, one hand carding through her unruly hair, a futile attempt at composing herself. "You his friend?"

Treville nodded. "We used to serve together," he simply said. The woman seemed about ready to charge him with Gaston's rent money and he hadn't the time to waste on that. "Do you know where I can find him?"

The woman huffed, one bony finger pointing towards the end of the street. "He spends most of his days at the _Les Dames_... you'll find him there now, fer sure."

The Captain tipped his hat to the woman, even as she closed the door on his face with a bang.

 _Les Dames_ , despite the name, held no indication of any lady of any respectable sort ever stepping a foot inside. The only ladies Treville could see in the gloomy environment were of the working variety and even those seemed more burden by disease than beauty.

He found Gaston sitting alone in one of the tables, his face laying on the dirty table top, a bottle of wine hanging precariously from his senseless fingers where they brushed against the floor.

"Gaston... Gaston!" Getting no response from the man, Treville grabbed his shoulders and gave them a vigorous shake. Dislodged by the motion, the bottle rolled away, leaving a faint trail of watered down wine in its wake. "Gaston, open your damn eyes!"

Finally getting a response from the man, Treville stepped back and searched Gaston's one opened eye for recognition. "Tr'ville? Is that truly you?"

The Captain smiled encouragingly. "You never could hold your drink, could you, my friend?"

Gaston made an effort to straightened himself on his chair, mostly failing. His fumbling hands dragged across the table until perching on Treville's doublet. "You here about the Red Guards, aren't you?" he blurted out, guilt clouding his eyes. "I've been waiting for you since then, knowing you'd come looking for retribution..."

Treville's heart froze inside his chest. "What are you talking about?" he whispered, looking around in search of anyone who might be paying attention to their conversation.

The tavern was overflowing with people, most of them talking too loud to allow to make out individual conversations, a fact he was grateful for. Still, he moved closer.

"I hadn't meant to, Treville, you must know that," the older man went on, his unfocused eyes pleading as he peered into the Captain's face. "I was drunk... still am... but that night... they were talking nonsense about the honor and courage of the Musketeers and I just... I hadn't mean to, you must believe me…"

"What did you speak, Gaston? What did you tell them?"

"I...someone should be told about the brave young men who died there, someone should know how unfair it was… so young…most of them were just kids," the man went on, his eyes blurring with unshed tears as he lost himself in his memories.

Treville shook him again, the urgency of his doubts allowing for no time to comfort his friend. "Did you speak of Savoy? Did you tell them anything?"

The slight nod from Gaston's head made Treville' stomach turn. Such a small gesture, with so impossibly large consequences. His head dropped to his chest, not wanting to hear the rest. "Tell me you didn't."

Gaston's muffled sob was all the answer he needed. "They started paying fer the wine then and the man with them-"

"What man?" Treville cut in, wanting to know every detail about what he guessed had happened.

"He knew about..." Gaston looked around, lowering his head until he was bent over Treville's ear, "... he knew about Savoy, he knew about the troop of men and he knew about what happened there..."

The older man's breathing hitched, his head once more supported by the table. His conscience, it would seem, was making it too heavy for him to support.

"He knew everything... I thought he knew everything... and then my accursed mouth let it slip," the man confessed. "I told him about the two survivors... I told him all about that poor kid who came back... I told him about Aramis."

Treville tried to swallow, finding his throat closed and dry. He got up, needing the space to order his ideas and stop himself from yelling at the drunken man.

After the lengths they had gone through to make sure no one know about the survivors, Gaston had betrayed his trust because he had been too drunk to mind his tongue!

Ironically enough, Treville walked to the tavern owner and ordered a bottle of wine to take back to Gaston's table. He eyed the dejected man from afar, working to convince himself that Gaston was not at fault. He found himself failing. Like he had failed that man as a friend, Treville reminded himself.

"Tell me about the man who was with the Red Guards," Treville asked, rejoining Gaston.

Gaston looked up from the table, surprised to see him return, or maybe noticing for the first time that he had been gone at all. "He was a Comte," he whispered conspiratorially, eyes darting around. "I remember his ring, black, ugly thing."

"A Comte?" Treville pushed. "Of where, could you tell?"

Gaston nodded, turning slightly green as he did so. He put a hand over his mouth, trying to stay the flow of vomit threatening to come out. Instead of bile, words passed his lips. "Rochefort," he finally said. "He was the Comte de Rochefort."

~§~

 _A few days before, the King's hunt day_

Treville looked at the man standing at attention in front of his desk, arms behind his ramrod straight back, gaze steady and unwavering at some distant point on the wall behind the Captain. He was the perfect image of the respectable soldier, spotless in his stance and behavior, if one was to ignore the dark shadows underneath those steady eyes.

It was hard to see him as the same man who had just publicly announced that he had been too drunk to tell reality from fantasy and had utterly embarrassed himself and the regiment in front of the King and court during a simple hunt.

However, despite what Aramis' tense pose suggested, Treville had not called him to his office to dress him down.

"I have a growing suspicion," Treville said after a while, finally coming to a decision. God helped him, this had to be the right thing to do. "One that would require your help in confirming."

Aramis blinked, the odd topic breaking his carefully maintained composure. "Captain?"

"What I'm about to tell you must not, under any circumstance, leave these walls. Am I clear?" the Captain asked, his voice imprinting the graveness of the situation. If whispered into the wrong ears, what he was about to suggest was tantamount to treason. For the both of them.

At Aramis' stern nod, Treville went on. "You are aware that the Cardinal took onto himself the inquiry over the garrison's attack, a couple of months ago, yes?"

The Musketeer fidgeted in his spot for the first time, his eyes averted for the briefest of moments before meeting the Captain's gaze head on, slowly nodding again. He had been the one to kill one of them and disarming the other, something that he would not easily forget. "As something come to light?" Aramis asked, his need to see justice done slipping into the eagerness of his tone of voice.

Treville rose from his desk, motioning for the soldier to follow him. Hidden under one of the floorboards, beneath his bed, there was a wad of papers. He handed them to the Musketeer.

Aramis read the papers carefully, one by one and Treville waited until the truth dawned on the young man's face. He blanched at the implications. "These men... all three of them?"

Treville nodded. It had been completely fortuitous the events that had led to those papers reaching his hands, and now that he had them, Treville would make sure that something would come out of it.

The King, absentmindedly, had given him a list of all the men in the Cardinal's personal guard, for Treville to deliver to the First Minister. It had been pure chance that had made the Captain's gaze drop casually to the rows of names and stumble across a familiar one, one of the men who had attacked the garrison. After that, it didn't take much effort for him to find the other two.

"Red Guards, all three of them, in the service of the Cardinal," Treville confirmed, taking the papers away and storing them back in the same place. It pained him to use the floor instead of his file cabinet, but he no longer believed the Musketeers' garrison to be a safe place, not until this plot was uncovered and stopped.

"But you cannot prove that they acted on the Cardinal's orders."

Treville nodded, thankful for the young man's sharp intellect. It had been one of the main reasons why he had invited Aramis to join the Musketeers.

"How can I help you prove the Cardinal's guilt?" the young man asked, the frown upon his face giving away the fact that he already knew the answer to his question.

Aramis searched his eyes, and suddenly Treville found himself doubting his resolve to go ahead with this. How could he ask the young man to do this, on top of knowing that Aramis was still struggling with the events of Savoy?

"You know about Maréchal _de_ Caumont," Aramis finally whispered, his shoulders sagging against the weight that seemed to suddenly descend on the young man. It wasn't a question, just the sad statement that he couldn't escape the truth.

As the Captain of the King's Musketeers, Treville had access to all of the military and personal information on his men. It would not do to have someone of less integrity and suspicious intents serving so close to France's monarchy.

When he had received Aramis' military information, he had been surprised to find a sealed letter amongst the rest of the papers, one with specific instructions to be burned immediately after being read. In it, Treville found a description of the role Aramis had played in unmasking the Maréchal as a traitor to France and his allegiance to the Huguenots, a role that, like all spies, no one was ever to discover. "I know about _de_ Caumont," Treville confirmed. "You were what? Eighteen, nineteen at the time?"

"Sixteen," Aramis whispered. "I was young, heartbroken...thought I didn't had much to lose at that point, so I accepted the mission to infiltrate his camp and gain the Maréchal's confidence..." he went on, his eyes lost in the memory. "His son had died the previous year and everyone thought that someone like me would be perfect to unmask his treason. A young boy to replace the one he had lost."

"Which you did, quite well, in fact," Treville pointed out. It had been one of the first triumphs of Louis XIII reign, one that, the Captain had realized then, had only been possible because Aramis had played his part flawlessly, finding strong evidence against the Maréchal and helping in his capture. What hadn't been on the letter but Treville had quickly realized upon getting to know the young man personally, was that the mission had not come without cost to his soldier. For all that the Maréchal had come to see that boy-spy as a surrogate son, Aramis, at such young age, had probably come to see the man as a father figure as well. It could not have been easy to form that bond and then see _de_ Caumont fall into disgrace and be executed. "I need you do something of the sorts again," the Captain said, bluntly, before he lost his nerve in face of Aramis' sadness.

"He was a good man," Aramis whispered. Treville had no idea if he was reminding himself of that or trying to defend the man to his Captain. "He taught me so much..." he said, voice trailing off into silent memories. "His only crime was to believe in something different from the majority."

"You did your duty, no one can hold you at fault for that," Treville reminded him, recognizing the guilt in the man's words. He too had served under the Maréchal orders, when King Henry was still alive, before the military man had chosen the wrong side to stand for. Treville knew he had once been a man of character.

There had been a few other assignments after that, minor tasks, Aramis' commanders taking advantage of both his youth and wit to get them other targets, more information. Aramis had been twenty one when his numerous requests to become a part of the regular Infantry were finally accepted.

"I told myself that I would never do something like that again," Aramis said, his tone flat and resigned. "I was merely fooling myself, wasn't I?"

Treville stepped closer to the young man, his hand clasping his shoulder. Underneath his touch, Aramis was tense as a bowstring, muscles coiled and ready to snap if pushed any further. "I'm asking you to do this," he pointed out. "Not commanding you to. I could never command any of my men to risk himself in such manner."

Aramis nodded, taking a deep breath through his mouth. The air came out slowly, fogging the air as it passed. "If the Cardinal is the one responsible for the attack on the garrison, for the brothers that we lost, I wish to be of help. If this is the only way..."

Treville sighed, telling himself that it was not disappointment that he felt over the fact that Aramis had said yes, just like he knew the young man would. But had he said no, Treville knew that his heart would be more at peace. "I would not ask if-"

Aramis looked ahead, meeting his eyes, the mask of a perfect soldier once more slipping in place, like a warm blanket against the freezing coldness of reality. "I understand," he cut in. "What did you have in mind, Captain?"

Retelling the Cardinal's comments that same day, Treville didn't needed much for Aramis to understand why it had to be him for such mission, even if he were not the one with the most experience to do it. The Cardinal already thought him unstable and was seeking to blame him for the attack on the garrison. It was just a matter of waiting for him to play his hand and catch him in a compromising position.

"You do understand what this mission might entail, yes?" Treville asked quietly. In an idyllic scenario, the Cardinal would confront Aramis in his office at the palace and simply force the young man to sign a confession using nothing but the compelling strength of his words. The non-idyllic scenario, however, was one that the Captain was not comfortable sending any of his men into, least of all Aramis.

"I understand," Aramis answered with a nod, a sad smile across his lips. "It's nothing I can't handle, Sir."

Treville held his gaze. From the way Aramis lowered his eyes under his scrutiny, the Captain was sure the young man thought him to be judging his ability to perform his duties and dreading to be found wanting. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. The Captain was judging himself, trying to convince himself to, once more, ask for too much from one of his men.

"It could be months until he makes his move," Aramis broke the silence, face lost in thought. "We can't afford to wait that long."

Treville raised an eyebrow, recognizing the look. Before, it usually meant that Aramis was up to some tomfoolery, probably in cahoots with Marsac. Now, after Savoy, he had no idea what that wild, pensive gaze meant and the thought left him uneasy. "What do you have in mind?"

Aramis eyes were like smoldering dark pieces of charcoal, staring unwavering at him. "You need to prove to the whole garrison and whatever spies the Cardinal has around, that you fault me for my actions today, that my behaviour has been a personal embarrassment to your honor," he said very quietly. "You need to make sure that no one in this garrison will lift a finger to defend me and fight his allegations; make him feel safe that there will be no retaliation if he comes after me."

Treville found himself nodding, even as the pit of his stomach burned like liquid fire. "And how do you purpose we accomplish all of that?" he found himself asking, even though he was mostly certain that he would not like the answer.

"You must make an example out of me and punish me accordingly to my actions," Aramis closed his eyes, preventing the Captain from glimpsing any residual doubt inside. "A proper military, corporal punishment."

Treville bit the inside of his mouth. He was a seasoned soldier, older and more experienced than Aramis. If the young man could utter those words in such a calm manner, fully knowing what he was implying, Treville would be damned to do him the disservice of wavering now. "Very well."

~§~

 _Now_

Aramis figured he must have lost his senses at some time during the journey. He had no idea if they had travelled far or near, no idea if they were still in Paris or even France.

The silence around him was all-encompassing, making him doubt his own sense of hearing. His eyes, to his relief, managed to catch the fleeting light from a few candles, scattered around the place.

He was alone.

They had stripped him of his doublet and boots and left him bound between two stone pillars, iron chains around his wrists that kept his arms stretched out from his sides. His broken bone pulsed fiercely at the position, fingers numb under the swelling and odd angle. On his feet, a length of chain linked one ankle to another, assuring that he could not use his legs for much else than standing. Aramis go to his feet, relieving some of the pressure from his arms as the chains allowed his hands to reach about waist high.

There were more columns around, one every couple of feet, despite the low ceiling. At the back, almost at the edge of what the candles could light, there was a statue made mostly of deep shadows, a marble saint whose name Aramis couldn't find in his memory.

The entire place had an ancient feeling about it, of old religion, from the days when people needed to hide their prayers from the rest of the world. A Roman-era church.

"Quite fitting, wouldn't you say?"

The voice echoed across the space, making Aramis wonder just how much of it was hidden in the shadows. He couldn't see anyone.

"Given that you have been brought here to confess your sins, an old, decrepit chapel seemed like the appropriate place for someone of the likes of you."

"Who are you?" Aramis snarled. The faceless, eerie voice was much too theatrical for his taste. "Show yourself!"

Steps resounded from the darkness, calculated movement that slowly brought his captor into the light. Aramis had expected some Red Guard, or even the Cardinal himself, but the blond man walking towards him was a complete stranger.

"Let's get one thing perfectly clear from the start, shall we?" he said, politeness in every word even as he picked up one of the candles and placed the flame under the iron encircling Aramis' right wrist.

Aramis tried to pull away, but the motion only served to awaken a sharp pain in his broken bone.

The stranger's eyes, a shade of blue colder than Treville's or even Athos', never wavered from his face, enthralled by every emotion flickering there.

"I give the orders here," he went on, icy eyes searching for the first flicker of pain. The candle moved closer to skin by the barest of inches. "I'm the one who tells you what to do, not you."

Aramis bit the inside of his cheek, forcing himself to face the man's stare unflinching. His face felt hot and cold at the same time, sweat sliding down his neck. Although he dare not look, Aramis was sure that his right wrist was in flames, the iron around it growing hotter and hotter until his flesh could do nothing else but cook like pork on a pike.

"I'm the one in control."

The stranger pushed in, coming close enough that Aramis felt his eyes crossing. He closed them, taking comfort in the darkness void of those cruel eyes.

The slap across his face stung more than it hurt, taking the Musketeer by surprise. He yelped, his body taking the opportunity to voice some of the pain he was feeling.

"No! You do not close your eyes unless I command you to," the stranger said, voice rising in anger. "Now... _scream_!"

For one short second, Aramis entertained the idea of spitting in the man's face and telling him just how insane he thought him to be. But when the stranger grabbed his broken limb and twisted, Aramis found that he had no other choice but to obey him.

He screamed.

~§~

"What do you mean ' _he was taken_ '?" Treville asked very collectedly, quiet anger seething just below the surface. "He was in the garrison's brig, MY brig...how on earth was he taken?"

The jailer' sense of self-preservation had him looking intently at the floor as he answered. "They had o-orders...from the Ca-Cardinal, Sir!" he stuttered, wriggling his hands behind his back.

Treville breathed slowly, nostrils flaring as he took a step forward. "And where are these orders? Why wasn't I summoned?"

The man seemed to shrink in front of his eyes, his hands coming out from behind his back to worry at the hem of his dirty shirt. His empty hands. "You were nowhere to be found," he explained. "They took the paper with them."

The man cowered away as every single item on top of Treville's desk flew under the force of the Captain' swiping rage. "You mean to tell me," he hissed, crowding into the jailer's personal space, "that we have no idea where they took him, why they took him and no proof of THEM EVEN BEING HERE?"

The man had no answer, other than the faint smell of urine that suddenly started to waft through the closed space.

"Get out of my sight!" Treville barked, turning his back on the trembling man.

He ran a hand through his thinning hair. The plan was to provoke the Cardinal into action and make him seek out Aramis in the open, feed him the bait and allow them to connect the First Minister with the garrison's attack. All of Treville's hopes that the Cardinal and Aramis met in the best of circumstances fled out the window the moment the keeper of his own brig allowed the Minister do take Aramis to parts unknown to do as he pleased.

His man being escorted away in the middle of the night meant that the plan could still be placed in practice but in a manner that did not sit well with Treville's peace of mind. How was he supposed to help Aramis and pull him out of the Cardinal's clutches after he'd played his part, if he had no inkling where the man was?!

Gaston's words came back to haunt him as Treville pondered his next course of action. After talking to the former Musketeer, the Captain had returned to the garrison with the full intention of telling Aramis that the assignment would not be going forward, not with the kind of information that he now knew the Cardinal to possess. It was one thing for him to ask Aramis to risk his life to bring to justice the man responsible for the Musketeers' deaths, it was another entirely to send the young man into the lion's den when said lion would not waste such an opportunity to kill the last survivor of Savoy. And that was exactly what had happened. "Damn it all to hell!"

"Captain?"

Athos' voice was, at once, inquisitive and demanding. Treville looked around at the mess he had created, both in his office and with this mission. He supposed that the sight did inspire some questions. "Is there anything you two wanted?" he asked instead, spotting Porthos just behind the other man. "As you see, I'm rather busy."

Both men's eyebrows rose in a synchronized motion that seemed practiced. "We have news," Athos simply said, wisely choosing not to comment on that state of the Captain's office.

"An' a few questions," Porthos added. His tone of voice wasn't quite menacing, but it came damn close.

"Report," Treville ordered dryly, disliking the tone. His temper had had no time to cool down. "And you would do well to remember who you're addressing."

The Captain was pleased to see both men stand at attention at his words. "Etienne Cussac's body was claimed by his mother in the aftermath of the events here. We spoke to Madame Cussac," Athos stated, his eyes fixed on some point on the wall behind Treville's face. "She was surprised to see Musketeers knocking on her door," he went on, his gaze finally meeting the Captain's, gauging his reaction, "given that her son have been a Red Guard."

Treville met his gaze steadily, appraising the delivery of those words. Athos was still looking at him, searching for a reaction, or maybe...recognition. Well, that would explain Porthos' barely concealed anger.

"This is not news to you," Athos finally concluded from his silence. The disapproval in his voice was all too clear.

Treville ignored him. The only one inside that room with the authority to draw conclusions and extract explanations was he, not a pair of newly minted Musketeers. "I send you out to find out who killed Gerard Gillion this is what you return with?"

"Do ya even have a care to help Aramis?" Porthos accused, his eyes fiery red. Athos' hand on his chest seemed enough to stop whatever else the large man wanted to say. Or do. "Or maybe beatin' 'im up in public was help enough for ya?"

The accusation stung, more than Treville would care to admit, but he would not back down in the face of angry words. Or maybe it was his own pride stopping him from recognizing the love and care that those words carried. "Close the door, Porthos," he ordered, a decision formed in his mind. "And sit down. Both of you."

Once the two were seated in front of his desk, chairs crushing discarded papers on the floor, Treville found himself lost for words. These two were too raw at being Musketeers, too new at the game. Certainly Porthos had the experience that came from fighting in the Infantry for years, but he lacked military strategy experience; and Athos, his education had certainly covered the art of war, but the man had been a soldier for less than a year. However, working together maybe the two of them could complete each other.

"You knew that the Red Guard was responsible for what happened here three months ago," Athos filled in for him when the silence became too much. "You suspected the Cardinal was behind it."

Such words, even whispered behind closed doors, could get all of them hanged, but the former Comte seemed to have no qualms about uttering them loud and clear. Treville respected that. "I did," he confirmed with a nod.

"An' what does all of this has to do with th' mess Aramis' in?" Porthos asked. From the aggravated look on the man's face, Treville was mostly certain that he knew the answer to his question pretty well too, even if he was reluctant to admit it to himself.

"I needed the Cardinal to feel comfortable enough with the situation that he would make a mistake," Treville told them. "Something that I could take to the King and prove that those Red Guards were under Armand's orders. Aramis..." he stopped himself, looking at the two men. Close as they had become, it was not his right to expose the other man's past like this. "...Aramis has some experience in these matters. I asked him to assist me."

"To see if the Cardinal would lure him to his side? Or make him his scapegoat?" Athos questioned, his mind already working through the details and realizing to what extent Treville and Aramis had gone. "The flogging?"

The Captain had to lower his eyes, lest they see the guilt there. "Aramis wanted the rift between us to be as wide as we could possibly make it," he confessed. "I agreed with his decision."

"The murdered man?"

Treville sighed. "Given the timing, I can only assume that he was a part of the Cardinal's plan," he asserted. He had known the man for years now, but the extent to which the First Minister would go to achieve his goals never failed to make his blood run cold. "If his plan is to discredit Aramis and make him the culprit for the garrison's explosion, making him the killer of the sole survivor of the attack would accomplish both with ease."

The parallels between the current situation and what had happened in Savoy were not lost on Treville. Quite the contrary.

"Wha' went wrong?" Porthos asked, leaning forward on his chair. How such a protective man had managed to remain seated throughout the whole conversation so far was surprising. "Somethin' must've happen' for you to be tellin' us all of this now."

Treville swallowed against the lump in his throat. "Aramis is missing...taken from the brig last night."

Those words were enough to accomplish what his entire speech had managed to avoid thus far. Porthos jumped from his chair, wood clattering as it collided with the floor. Athos, more contained, simply bit his lip, before rising up to pace the office.

"The Cardinal has him, somewhere," Treville went on, talking through the men's understandable distress. "Which means Aramis might have a chance to put our plan to work, but we need to find out where the Cardinal's men took him, as quickly as we can."

"He'll kill'im," Porthos whispered. His voice, rather than laced with fear, was heavy with anger and sure promise of retribution if Aramis was harmed in any way.

"No, the Cardinal has nothing to gain from that," Treville assured, even though doubt plagued him that the situation wasn't as linear as he was making it. "Not until Aramis confesses to crimes he did not commit."

The implications of his words were not lost on the two other men. Aramis needed to keep his mouth shut if he was to survive. But he still needed to give the Cardinal enough rope so that the man could hang himself.

"He can't do that," Porthos whispered, giving voice to what the others were thinking.

Treville walked to his bed, collecting a number of papers from a hideout underneath, conscious of the two men's eyes following his every move. "This is all the evidence I have so far," he said, selecting one piece of paper from the pile. "And this is the only thing that will keep Aramis alive for now, if he plays his cards right."

"What is that?" Athos asked.

Treville handed over the piece of parchment and waited as the young soldier's eyes raced through the few lines written there. It read as a signed confession, written by the dying hand of one of the assailants at the garrison. Treville knew that in detail, because he had been there when Aramis had written it, as both men recognized that the Musketeer's handwrite would be safer to use rather than one that the Cardinal might have recognized.

"This is a forgery," Athos stated, no shadow of doubt in his tone. "Jacques Bennoit died instantly. Aramis shot him. And Etienne Cussac never regained consciousness before passing away."

"A fact that, I'm sure, the Cardinal is unaware of," the Captain explained. "And he is the only one who must believe that this piece of paper not only exists, but is real."

It was a thin line. And they needed to be there to catch Aramis before that line snapped.

"That letter cannot remain here," Athos commented, fully aware that if that piece of paper was Aramis only leverage against having his throat slit, it had to be placed somewhere the Cardinal's people could easily reach.

The Captain nodded. Aramis had raised the same point. "Before you two start your search, I would have you deliver that letter to a this address," the Captain instructed. "Do not tell them of its importance, only that I'm to be warned as soon as it is taken from their hands. Are we clear?"

~§~


	5. Chapter 5

~§~

Delivering the forged letter had been the easy part. The master of the house, a pompous cloth merchant to whom Treville sometimes commissioned clothing for the garrison, had been less than pleased by the simple task of holding onto a piece of parchment, finding it beneath him. He was not, after all, Treville's personal messenger.

The purse, heavy with coin, that Treville had sent along to help persuade him, had gone a long way to make the man see reason.

Athos had doubted Treville's common sense at first. It seemed unnecessarily risky to put such an important part of the plan in the hands of unaware civilians. However, as soon as they entered the house and he found himself in the presence of Monsieur Bonacieux, it was easy to see the ingenuity and cunning of Treville's plan.

The merchant was, in short, a buffoon of a man. It would be impossible for anyone to think him anything else but an unsuspicious keeper of an important letter, with absolutely no idea of what he was holding in his hands. Which, incidentally, he was.

The wife was his complete opposite. Her face seemed familiar to the older Musketeer, but only when she smiled at him did recognition hit him. "Madame Bonacieux," Athos greeted her, remembering the brave young woman he had rescued the morning before he had joined the Musketeers, almost half a year before. "At your service."

"It seems, _Monsieur_ Athos," she had said with a knowing wink, "that the ones being of service will be us, this time around. About time, that too!"

Everyone chose to ignore the oblivious, pointed look Monsieur Bonacieux gave the two of them. Apparently, Madame Bonacieux hadn't seen fit to tell her husband of her 'adventures' at the market.

Finding Aramis was proving to be much more troublesome. Paris had more than twenty official prisons and about as many unofficial ones. Even if they were granted access to all of them, it would take them weeks to determine in which one the Cardinal had hidden Aramis.

Treville, however, had supplied them with one name. The Comte de Rochefort.

"Ya ever heard of this fella?" Porthos asked. His face still reflected the fury he was feeling towards the whole situation. The large Musketeer, Athos had gathered earlier on, was not particularly fond of any type of subterfuge.

Athos closed his eyes, his expression hidden from view by the shadows in which they had taken shelter. It was not his intention to lie to Porthos, but neither did he possessed any desire to divulge his past to anyone, even a good friend.

He had met Rochefort once, a number of years before, on the day Athos had become a Comte himself. The man had struck him as simply _wrong_. It was not something that he could name or define, just a sense of hair raising at the back of his neck that came over him whenever Rochefort was nearby.

Of course, if one was to believe the hushed whispers about Rochefort and his particularly unsavory 'appetites', the feeling was more than natural. "My family held a faint acquaintance with him," Athos admitted finally. "Enough to learn about the rumors."

"Yer family had 'faint acquaintances' with a Comte, eh?" Porthos parroted, looking more amused than surprised. Athos suspected that there was, at some point, some sort of bet going on about his past around the garrison. "Fancy that."

The older Musketeer glared at him. "Rochefort is a Comte only in name," he explained. "His family fell out of grace with the King when they decided to support Marie de Medici instead of Louis. They lost everything in their possession."

"Serves 'em right," the large man growled. Rochefort's association with the Cardinal and his quite possibly involvement in Aramis' disappearance, were more than enough reasons for Porthos to hate the man with all of his heart. "Wanna explain t' me why we're standin' outside this... _place_ and not turnin' Paris upside down 'til we find Aramis?"

Athos could understand Porthos' dislike of their current location. _La Rue Trace-Putain_ was, very much like the name suggested, where one could find all sorts of fine establishments dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh. One particular establishment however, the one whose entrance they had been watching for some hours, catered to a specific type of cravings that both men found utterly revolting.

The _Araigneé_ was well known for turning a blind eye to the age of its workers, even encouraging the placement of girls of fourteen and younger under their patronage. The younger, the better for the Spider's clientele.

While not exactly illegal, it was something frowned upon by decent and honorable people. And it was exactly the kind of place Rochefort seemed to favor.

"According to the Captain, Rochefort has been known to frequent the place," Athos reminded his companion. "Since he wasn't in his rooms..."

Porthos growled again. Stillness and patience were not the man's most valued qualities. "Wha' do ya make of Treville's tale?" he asked after a while, taking off his hat and rubbing his reddened eyes. He looked as Athos felt, beyond exhausted.

The sun would be coming up in a few hours and neither of them had seen a bed that night. But if Rochefort wasn't in his, odds were he was meddling in something vile.

"I think Treville is a man of honor, committed to his duty," Athos finally answered Porthos' question. Strangely, the fact that the Captain had chosen Aramis for this particular task and that his decision had placed the marksman was in such a dangerous situation, made Athos empathize with the commander of the Musketeers rather than forsake him. After all, Athos knew all too well what it felt like to uphold honor and duty above love.

Despite the recent events, with Aramis' actions at the King's hunt being answered with that whole charade of a punishment that both of them had fabricated, it was easy for all to see that Treville and Aramis had a unique kind of relationship. It was one that, at times, seemed to blur the lines between commander and soldier and become something more familiar and... affectionate.

After all, the Captain had allowed Aramis to forgo his usual Musketeer duties and seclude himself in the sickroom for months, for reasons that neither had ever deemed fit to share with anyone. Much as he tried to minimize it through his actions, there was no denying the fact that the Captain cared for Aramis perhaps a bit more than he did for the rest of his men.

But soldiers went where and did as they were told, and even if the decision to put Aramis in harm's way could not have been one made lightly by Treville, it was one he must have felt he needed to make. To Athos, it felt too much like placing a noose around the neck of someone you loved. "I also think that there is something he's not telling us," Athos added.

Porthos attention veered away from the _Araigneé_ . "Like what?"

Athos shrugged, ignoring Porthos' pointed look. It was merely a feeling, an impression left by something unfamiliar in Treville's eyes. The man had been scared.

The Captain would not have entrusted such a delicate mission to Aramis if he didn't believe the other man capable of handling it with the efficiency and flexibility required for such task. Spying and infiltration would always be a part of a world that was propelled by intrigue and conspiracy; it was naive to assume that the Musketeers would never take part in unmasking such plots by all means necessary, dishonorable as they might seem.

Tasked with finding proof of the Cardinal's involvement in the attack on the garrison, Aramis had to be aware of the risks he was taking, as was Treville. Worrisome as it was to know that their fellow Musketeer was now in the Cardinal's hands, one would assume that the proximity would aid in achieving that goal. So, why would a military man like Treville, more than experienced in sending his men into life-endangering risk, be so scared about such a predictable turn of events? "I cannot be sure," Athos finally said, closing his eyes in frustration. "But whatever it is, the best we can do is to find Aramis as quickly as possible."

When the sun rose in the sky and Rochefort had not put in an appearance, Athos started to wonder what it had cost his friend for them to waste the whole night in such a pointless manner.

~§~

Aramis' legs felt numb. Although he had never been inside a cavern, the Musketeer believed the feeling would be much similar to what he was experiencing now. There was the same iciness, dampness and deep sense of void that he imagined to permeate such places. It was an emptiness that took hold from within and threatened to freeze his very soul.

Hours had passed. At least, Aramis assumed it had been hours, for his sense of time was as lost as his sense of direction and with nothing around him but darkness and silence, there was little hope of finding either.

The strange man had left at some point after taking his fill of twisting Aramis' broken arm, but not before taking the time to strap him into a parting gift and snuffing out the light from all the candles. Aramis had been left alone, in the cold darkness, with nothing but pain and his ghosts to keep him company.

He swallowed carefully, as even the slightest movement seemed to disturb the vile thing around his neck. A Heretic's Fork, the other man had informed him with grand detail and panache, even if the Musketeer had been in too much pain at the time to fully register his words.

Not that the words mattered much. To Aramis, it was nothing but a double-edged fork strapped to his neck, one set of prongs pushed underneath his jaw and the other pressed against his breastbone, the long length of metal in between forcing him to keep his neck extended and still unless he wished to impale himself.

It was not a contraption made for killing, merely to prevent any possibility of rest. Whoever that man was, he wanted Aramis on the edge, senses stretched thin with tiredness and fear. And to the marksman' anger, the stranger was succeeding.

Exhaustion had forced him to test the sharpness of the instrument some time before. Sleep had called to him and, despite his best efforts, Aramis had lost control over his consciousness and nodded off. His rest lasted a whole of two seconds, as the prongs pushed against his skin without hesitation, thin, twin lines of blood dripping down his neck and chest. The Musketeer came to hissing and cursing, words dripping from the side of his mouth for even working his tongue proved to be a challenge.

After that, the fear of succumbing to tiredness a second time and impaling himself on those sharp prongs had kept him alert, his heart racing at the possibilities. He needed something to keep him conscious, something to occupy his mind. His hands, as it was, were busy.

Before the last candle had gone out, Aramis had managed to take a good look at the iron rings to which the chains on his arms were attached. The whole structure was old, and the iron rings, bolted to the stone columns, didn't look like a recent addition. If he were able to pull even one loose...

Knowing that he could hardly count his broken right arm, Aramis had decided to focus on the left bolt. So far, it had hardly budged, but he wasn't ready to give up yet. After all, he had nothing better to do before his new 'acquaintance' returned.

The man had failed to introduce himself before leaving, but given that the Red Guards had apparently delivered Aramis to him, it was safe to assume that he worked for the Cardinal as well.

He hadn't been dressed in the red and black leathers of the Cardinal's men, but he hadn't looked or sounded like a street thug either. There was a degree of fine education in his speech and the way he handled himself, a way of looking down on his prisoner - even though lacking the height to do so properly - that Aramis had come to associate with royalty and high-borns.

As the man had placed the contraption on Aramis' neck, he had glimpsed a ring on the stranger's finger, a golden pompous thing with a shiny black stone that identified the vile man as a Comte.

So, the question was, which high-born lord was on the Cardinal's payroll?

Aramis prevented himself from laughing at the utter stupidity of his own question, lest he paid for his misplaced humor with more pain. Armand was the First Minister, second only to the King Himself. It would be a hard task indeed to find any sort of courtier and Lord in the whole of France not willing to bend himself at the waist for a chance of favor with the King through his right hand man.

The real question then became which high-born Lord would not mind to do the Cardinal's dirty work for him?

Aramis closed his eyes for a moment, willing the back of his neck to relax in such uncomfortable position. He was still fooling himself with non-important questions. He had no care about the man's name, only for what he had been sent there to do. Dirty work indeed. The most foul possible, if his accommodations were of any indication.

It was obvious from the isolation of the place and the state he'd been left in, that the Cardinal's man was there to extract something from him. As Aramis wasn't currently in possession of any information of relevance, his nemesis was either there to persuade him to confess to something he hadn't done or the Cardinal mistakenly thought that Aramis knew more than he actually did about some matter he had no clue about. He disliked either option with all his heart.

In his mind, Aramis was trying to devise a way to make such a situation work to his advantage. Despite the circumstances, the Musketeer still had a few cards up his sleeve and he was now in a position to finally put into play the plan he and Treville had devised. Even if the circumstances were not exactly what he would call favorable, he was a soldier above all else and would make circumstances work to fit his assignment.

The solution was so obvious that Aramis could only blame his exhausted mind for not having seen it before. After all, it was only a matter of knowing what the Cardinal feared the most and using his own man to play upon those fears. It would all depend on the Cardinal's man believing his sincerity.

But what if this had nothing to do with the explosion and Treville's quest to successfully accuse the Cardinal?

Once the thought assaulted him, Aramis found it impossible to escape the possibility. For months now, he had been trying to cope and make himself deal with the events that had taken place on the failed mission of Savoy.

The deployment had been Treville's idea, the planning of which exercises the troop would be performing his as well. But the presence of that many dead soldiers on the border of a sovereign country and the implication of a rogue band of Spanish mercenaries had nearly provoked a diplomatic incident with the Duke of Savoy.

The Cardinal had become deeply involved in the matter, demanding to find those responsible for such a tragedy with almost the same fervor as the Captain had displayed.

What if, despite Treville's assurances and care, the Cardinal had discovered Aramis involvement in the tragedy? What if, like Treville feared, this was the time when fingers would point in to Aramis' direction and name him responsible for the deaths of his brothers?

Darkness lingered and Aramis' breath hitched inside his chest. Every single sound echoed in that place, magnified by the emptiness of the vast room. The slightest shift in the stones sounded like thunder, the light steps of rats like hooves, the far-away sound of water drops plunging as if in an ocean.

Even his own shallow breathing was sonorous. Aramis could hear it bouncing from pillar to pillar, returning to him as the dying moans of twenty-two men.

The Musketeer closed his eyes. He had a mission, Treville was counting on him to bring justice to those who had died in the garrison the day of the explosion; he could not lose himself in his memories and fears.

Silently, Aramis prayed, words that had not been uttered in years coming freely and effortlessly to his mind. While his youth had been dedicated to God, the monks near his home teaching him as much about Latin and healing as they had taught him about God and His teachings, Aramis had turned his back on God when he found himself robbed of the promise of a new life and the opportunity to become a husband and father.

Years of living by sword and violence as his guides followed and, by the time Aramis had found himself the only man alive in a field of dead Musketeers, he lacked any other choice but to believe that God had finally turned His back on him as well.

But now...now Aramis prayed for the first time since a life-time of silence and, to his surprise, feeling comfort in the familiar words. He prayed for an opportunity to bring justice to those who'd died; he begged for his mind to remain his own, at least until he could make his play on the Cardinal. His mouth moved wordlessly as he went through the prayers of his youth, his mind filling the void of sound with the voices from the monastery near the village where he grew up.

The words started echoing before Aramis realized that he was voicing them. Passage after passage from the Bible floated around him, familiar and comforting words keeping him company as the hours trickled away, until he lost track of which ones he had whispered and which ones were answering him back.

~§~

Treville told himself that he would not lose his temper in front of the King and Queen, that he had a part to play and that he had no choice but to play if flawlessly... but seeing the Cardinal whispering into the monarch's ear like he was free from guilt had ill effects on the Captain's composure. "Where have you taken my man?"

Richelieu straightened, but even in his rigid posture he looked slightly amused. "And what man would that be, Captain?" he asked, feigning a boredom that no one truly believed to be more than theatricality. "The disgraced Musketeer who you flogged like a commoner, the murderer...or the insane one who dared to attack his King?"

"What is he talking about, Armand? Who dared to attack me?"

Treville bit his tongue, stopping himself from rising to the bait, choosing instead to store away the information that the First Minister was supplying him for free, like the fact that he was much too well informed about what happened inside the Musketeers' garrison.

The Cardinal was all too proficient in bending the meaning of words and already he looked like a man who had won.

"One of your own, Your Majesty. A Musketeer," the Cardinal supplied, ever the voice of counsel and illumination, even when every word out of his mouth was a lie. "Surely you remember him, Sire, from the hunt? The one who gave you a faulty weapon and assaulted that poor, injured man?"

The King's eyes lit in recognition, grasping his wife's hand as if seeking comfort. "I do remember...what a most ghastly event," he said, making no effort to amend the Cardinal's version from a faulty weapon to his lack of attention to where he chose to aim. Fortunately for Poitier, the King was truly a lousy shot. "What ever became of him?"

"He killed a man, Your Majesty," the Cardinal hurried to announce, before Treville could say anything. "Executed him, really, after facilitating his escape from prison."

"The matter is still under investigation," Treville pointed out. "And that man, poorly as he may have behaved, is still a Musketeer and, therefor, under my custody."

"And he no longer is?" the King asked, sounding less bored by the conversation after hearing such news. After a few seconds, a look of pure fright overcame his eyes. "Did he escape? What if he is to come here?"

Treville closed his eyes and took a breath. He needed to remind himself that the previous King had been a just and intelligent man. Surely his son would have inherited _some_ degree of those qualities. Even if he was presently scared by the idea of an attack –a fictitious one at that- repeating itself.

"He was transferred, at the Cardinal's orders, from the Musketeers' brig to parts unknown, in the middle of the night, without my consent or knowledge, Your Majesty," Treville said, waiting to see if the Cardinal would go as far as denying that he had the Musketeer in his possession. If he did, then Aramis life could be lost already.

"The man has a point, Cardinal," Louis pointed out, looking slightly miffed at the implication that Treville's command, and therefore His, had been scorned. The Musketeers had been his creation and, fortunately for Treville, the King didn't do well when others played with his toys. "Give the murderer back to Treville, I'm sure he will deal with the matter appropriately."

The Cardinal's curtsy was somewhat stiff, a sure sign that the First Minister was ferociously enraged inside.

For one brief moment, Treville wondered if he had gone too far in his demands. He wished to know where Aramis was being held, but if he was returned before their plan could come into fruition, then the whole charade would have been for naught. When the Cardinal's mouth started making noise again, the Captain could barely contain his relief.

"I will, of course, do whatever Your Majesty commands," the older man said, his eyes still cast low. "However, what would the people think about the fairness of Your Majesty's justice if a murderer is allowed special treatment just because he is one of the _King's_ Musketeers? Should they be afforded more than the rest of France, just because of whose colors they wear?"

The blush that spread across the King's pale complexion was all too evident to any looking. Becoming the ruler of France at such a young age certainly had its drawbacks, one of which being that the King was all too prone to see criticism and comparisons with his father in all comments to his person and decisions.

The battle was over as soon as the Cardinal, more than familiar with the King's weakness, decided to draw attention to the 'people's' opinion. Treville closed his eyes, feigning defeat. "Your Majesty..."

"No, Treville," the King cut in. He had his nose held high, his eyes fixed on the Cardinal's bent head. "The Cardinal is right. The Red Guards are responsible for the safe keeping of King's law and order inside the city. This matter falls to them, not the Musketeers. Your man will have a fair trial and, God willing, a swift death. See that it gets done, Armand."

The Captain bowed low, to hide the conflicting emotions on his face, hoping that he hadn't just condemned Aramis to a lonely and painful death at the hands of the Cardinal's people.

His part, however, was done. For now.

~§~

"How much longer?"

"I was not aware that we were pressed for time, your Eminence. These things... cannot be rushed."

The Cardinal paused his scribbling mid-sentence, the missive he was writing suddenly losing interest as he gauged the other man's tone. Rochefort had been a valuable asset for a number of years now, someone close to the Crown ever since he had tutored Queen Anne in the French language and customs, prior to her marriage to King Louis. It was convenient to have someone at his service with such low standards of honor and value, even if the man himself caused the First Minister a certain...repugnance.

The landless Comte had certainly proved his usefulness in recent times, by taking full advantage of the Musketeers 'distraction' to single handedly secure and escort Cluzet, the Spanish spy in Savoy, into captivity.

"A man in my position cannot afford to have doubts and whispers of foul deeds dangling in the wind for anyone who wishes to catch them and give them unnecessary importance," the Cardinal said very quietly, setting his writing feather down.

While the King had been made aware that certain unsavory measures had been taken to assure the protection of his sister in Savoy, he had not been told that the lives of twenty-two Musketeers had been sacrificed to achieve such. As far as Louis was concerned, the death of that troop of Musketeers had been nothing but a sad misunderstanding and over reaction of the Duke of Savoy's part.

In retrospect, the same results could have easily been obtained without the loss of that many lives, but power, as it was, did not come without its perks. It was certainly worth the effort, just to see the sour look in Treville's face when he was forced to make a report to His Majesty.

Loose threads, however, were not the making of a fine robe or, incidentally, a long term seat at the King's right side.

For months he had believed the matter of Savoy dealt with and dusted under the carpet. The Duchess remained safely at her clueless husband' side, Cluzet was happily rotting in an unnamed Paris prison and Treville was so consumed by his own guilt and blemished honor that he was hardly a worthy opponent these days. A most profitable endeavor indeed.

And then, a chance encountered in some God forsaken tavern had forced the Cardinal to rethink his whole strategy. When Rocheford had informed him of the existence of one survivor still amongst the ranks of Musketeers, Richelieu had lost his temper and slapped the man, accusing him of wasting the First Minister's precious time with foolish tavern talks.

Aramis, he had been informed, was the name of the soldier who had witnessed the massacre and, like a coward, returned. The name meant nothing to the First Minister, but the idea, however, had been planted in his mind. He could not rest until he knew for certain that no one had returned, that no one could cast any doubt about the purpose of that troop of Musketeers in the woods of Savoy.

Killing a single Musketeer should have been easy enough, but as far as his spies could inform him, there was no one in Treville's garrison going by the name of Aramis. So, how to kill a ghost...or better yet, how did the Cardinal killed an idea?

Taking advantage of Treville's open door tryouts for new Musketeers, the Cardinal had sent Rochefort and three of his best men to infiltrate the garrison and bring to him all documents pertaining to the Musketeers' incursion in Savoy.

Rochefort had returned with the documents he needed, but in his lust for violence, had escalated things by blowing up Treville's men and almost killing his own in the process. And the documents had been useless.

The name he had been whispered was not a part of any official report on the mission. As far as Treville's records went, this Aramis had never been a part of the Savoy troop. A haunted spirit in the making, never there and, therefor, never to return.

Such validation alone should have brought him some peace of mind and effectively closed the matter, but the Cardinal was not a man to believe in either luck or coincidence. The more his men failed to prove the existence of the Musketeer Aramis, the more the Cardinal was convinced of the man's existence. The fact that the name was absent from the list of the dead only encouraged his belief that the Captain of the Musketeers was, somehow, covering for this man, perhaps even keeping him as insurance for a later time when he chose to confront the Cardinal.

Loyalty would always remain the one valor impossible to segment. Treville would never speak against the King on the matters of Savoy, but the fact that he had kept such important facts hidden, hinted upon the fact that his loyalty was perhaps more divided than it should and that was a matter of some...concern. Eliminating the one man who reminded the Captain of his decisions and their consequences seemed like the benevolent thing to do.

It had fallen onto fate that the Cardinal should be the one to find for himself what Rochefort had failed to confirm. Anyone present at the King's hunt had heard the name Aramis, and the Cardinal could finally place a face upon the name that had haunted him for months. As for the man himself...it was clear from his actions then, in front of the whole court, that man carried the devil inside of him.

That Aramis person was clearly touched in the head, perhaps for his whole life, perhaps due to the events in Savoy. Whichever it was, the Cardinal had little interest in the cause, only the consequences. The peculiar display he had witnessed at the hunt, had left no doubts in the Cardinal's mind about what he had to do. It was all so utterly easy that the matter was hardly worth his time.

The whole sordid event at the King's hunt had been useful, indeed. In one fell swoop, the Cardinal had ascertained that this Aramis fellow not only existed, but was also someone pathetically easy to discredit.

"The King did not found it amusing at all that someone had the gal to blow up half of the quarters of His personal regiment," the Cardinal informed. "Each week, he asks me who is going to hang for such an affront to his Royal persona. It is long past due for a neck to be supplied."

All they needed was a signed confession from the Musketeer, telling of his involvement in the garrison's attack and admitting to killing his accomplice, Gerard. After that, if he chose to open his mouth about Savoy on his way to the gallows, no one would believe a word he said and the Cardinal could make quick work of casting him as a coward and a traitor who had clearly sold out his comrades in order to survive. The Musketeer's words would be as lasting as, ironically, snow melting under spilled blood.

"I want to see this matter resolved as quickly as possible," Richelieu reminded his man. "Your job is to get me what I want, if I remember correctly. So," the Cardinal paused, looking squarely into Rochefort's cold eyes, "get me that confession...lest you find that noose around your neck."

~§~


	6. Chapter 6

~§~

Porthos smirked as he saw the blond man exit the Cardinal's office, thanking the Heavens above for answering his prayers. After a wasted night, spent waiting outside a whorehouse in the faint hope that Rochefort would put in an appearance, he had suggested -threatened- that they should move right to the source. If this man was working for the First Minister, it stood to reason that he would have to report back to the man at some point or answered his call if summoned.

Of course, that was assuming that it had been Rochefort who had taken Aramis, a supposition supported only by the fact that the Comte seemed all too willing to do the Cardinal's dirty work.

Whether Aramis still remained in Paris or had been taken to some secluded place on the outskirts of the city was something that both Musketeers were hoping Rochefort would help them with.

The fact the Captain had been opened to lend assistance and had offered to push the Cardinal into action hadn't hurt matters either. As soon as the audience with the King had been over, a messenger had been dispatched by the First Minister. Half an hour later, a disgruntled looking Rochefort arrived at the palace.

A short time later, Rochefort came back out, walking like a man with a purpose. He looked furious.

"Is that 'im?" Porthos asked, to which Athos gave him a stiff nod.

Porthos could see why his friend disliked the fellow. There was an air of wrongness about him that set Porthos' teeth on edge. A shift in the air that made him want to reach for his weapon and make sure that all the women and children in the vicinity were well-hidden from view.

And although he was neither, the mere thought of Aramis being at that man's mercy...it chilled Porthos to the bone, for there were people who carried out evil deeds and there were others who were simply evil. One look at that Rochefort fellow and Porthos already knew too well to which group the Comte belonged.

Outside of the palace grounds, the two Musketeers mounted and followed the man at some distance. Wherever he was going, he was in a hurry to arrive there, making one single stop at the Red Guards' garrison to pick up a saddle bag. He left his horse there and continued on foot, forcing the Musketeers on his tail to do the same.

Navigating the busy streets of Paris without losing track of their quarry and remaining unseen was not an easy task. On two separate occasions, Porthos was sure that they had lost sight of the Comte, only to find him a little further ahead as the crowd cleared.

"He's headin' for Notre Dame," Porthos realized, as they stopped near an apple cart, pretending to buy fruit as Rochefort looked around the square. Having grown up in the streets of Paris, the dark-skinned Musketeer knew better than most the layout of the city. Confusing as it might have looked for an outsider, there were some places inside the city walls where all paths led to the same place. Notre Dame was one of those places.

"Why is he going to church?" Athos asked, confused.

Porthos shrugged. It wasn't like they were foolish enough to believe that Rochefort was going to lead them straight to their friend. Life was rarely that sympathetic with people's plights and Porthos wasn't a man to believe in luck. If he were, he wouldn't cheat at cards.

The bells of the cathedral rang ten times, announcing the fast approaching end of the morning. Porthos could feel his eyes growing heavier as he counted how many hours it had been since he'd made peace with his own bed. "Maybe he's here t'pray?" he offered, twisting his nose. Rochefort didn't strike him as a repentant man.

Entrusting the horses to one of the vendors outside the cathedral, Porthos and Athos followed their quarry inside.

There weren't many people along the central nave, their numbers seemingly diminished by the size of the place. Most of the devoted stood on the long aisles, lighting candles and whispering prayers on their knees.

The air smelled of melted beeswax and incense, a particular mix that never failed to have the same strange effect on Porthos, making him want to lower his head and feel guilty about something.

He gave in to the feeling long enough to bend a knee and cross himself, before running his eyes through the thin crowd.

Porthos searched the faces of the few women and men standing around, listening to the droning voice of the priest on the podium at the front. The tall Musketeer pushed down the emerging yawn that the continuous string of Latin was inducing. "I don't see 'im anywhere," he whispered.

"There," Athos called quietly, pointing to a space beyond the altar, catching the tail swing of the Comte's cloak.

Porthos cursed inside, sending a repentant look at the a stone statue of a saint, looking sternly at him. The area behind the altar possessed a number of chambers and rooms where Rochefort could have hidden, not to mention the access to both the gallery high above and the crypts below. "Take the ones on the left and the crypt," he whispered back. "I'll take the right and the bloody gallery," he voiced, already planning to painfully extract from Rochefort the number of steps he was about to face. Well, at least the Comte had disappeared into the 'short' side of the cathedral. Porthos shuddered at the thought of facing the nearly four hundred steps to the bells above had he disappeared in the opposite direction.

Half an hour later, when they met at the edge of the cathedral's nave, Porthos could see that his companion was as empty-handed and frustrated as he was. "Nothin'?"

Athos shook his head, one hand scrubbing through his beard. He looked about as tired as Porthos felt. "Perhaps he spotted us and escaped through one of the side doors?" he suggested.

The problem with Notre Dame was that it was one large lady, with too many nooks and crannies to search without raising suspicion.

"We lost 'im," Porthos hissed, balling his hat in his hands as he voiced what neither of them wanted to admit. "I can't believe we fuckin' lost 'im!" In the cavernous space of the cathedral, the Musketeer's deep voice sounded like a sonorous shout, even though he had barely whispered the words.

A dozen heads turned in their direction, some alerted by the raised voice, others clearly having heard Porthos' language, if the shocked looks on their faces were anything to go by. A few crossed themselves before ignoring the two men once again.

"Best we remove this conversation to some other place," Athos advised, his hand curling around Porthos' arm before dragging him away.

Outside, the city was bubbling with activity. The square in front of the cathedral was never empty of vendors and beggars, life flourishing in the shadow of the tall building as if blessed by it.

Porthos paced in front of the imposing doors, nibbling at his bottom lip. "Aramis could be dead already, fer all we know," he let out. The admission was more to himself than anything else. Saying the words out loud hurt as much as he had expected. Soldiers and death were forever courting each other, but this...this was too bloody pointless to offer any kind of comfort.

"Rochefort didn't simply vanish into thin air," Athos said, not saying a word to agree with or counter Porthos' defeated statement. "He is either somewhere inside the cathedral, or he used it to get us off his trail."

"He didn' see us," Porthos pointed out. He had learned from the best in the Court of Miracles. If he wanted to follow a mark, he could do it to the very edge of that person's bed, and still he wouldn't be seen. "'m sure of it."

Athos nodded, even though he had no inkling on the amount of experience Porthos had in the matter. "Then we must speak to the Bishop, try to find out if there have been any strange occurrence of late."

Porthos rubbed his eyes. He wanted Athos was to be right. But what of the alternative? "Wha' if we're wrong, Athos? Wha' if we're chasing our tails and this has nothing to do with Aramis? Wha' if we're wasting time he doesn't have?"

The older Musketeer's eyes turned up, looking at the facade of the cathedral. A row of saints and martyrs gazed down upon them, their stone faces impassive and unimpressed by the comings and goings of mortal men. "We must have faith," he said, emotion crumbling inside his eyes.

For a man who barely acknowledged God as an entity, the words sounded hollow and defeated to Porthos' ears. They gave him no hope at all.

~§~

It was like an itch in the arse in the middle of parade, Aramis realized. The kind that you don't feel until you realize that you're on parade and, therefore, can't move to scratch, so it appears out of nowhere and quickly becomes the center of your very existence. After that pitiful realization, all you can think of is scratching your bum to your heart's content. The thought consumes you until you have no choice but to give in.

Aramis knew that he couldn't look down or move his head much, not without incurring in great risk of stabbing himself. Therefore, the only thing he could think of was what a relief it would be to look down for a faintest of little bits and rest his head and neck.

He was so tired that he caught himself pondering how much damage he would do to himself if he rested his head ever so slightly, just how far could those prongs go into his chest without reaching something vital.

He quickly abandoned the idea. His arm was broken. That was already more than enough leverage for the man who would, surely, return at some point to...question him. There was no point in doing the man's grimy work for him.

Still, what Aramis wouldn't give for a few seconds of rest, to just close his eyes and escape his dark surroundings. Deciding that such thoughts were foolish, he concentrated on the iron bolt on the column. The thing refused to give way, and Aramis refused to give any quarter. He pulled again, having lost count of the times he had repeated the motion.

There was no way of telling how much time had passed since the man had left him there. There were no sounds, no ghost of a light anywhere. Hours passed with nothing to tell one apart from the other. They all looked the same.

Aramis licked his parched lips, raspy tongue rubbing against the skin like sand.

The only times he had seen sand, stepped on it, was during some battle or another. For a time, it seemed like the only place fit to defend France was on its shores, glory bathed in salt water and blood.

Aramis _hated_ sand.

A light flickered at a distance, so faint and ethereal that, for a second, Aramis thought he was imagining it. The wavering orange glow looked like a firefly, gently swinging up and down as it drew nearer, fire attracted to Aramis as if their roles had been reversed.

The sound of footsteps, in cadence with the light' swinging, told Aramis that his wait was over. "Tell me you've brought food, or else I'll be very disappointed," he whispered, doing his best to talk and smirk without disturbing the thing on his neck. "I'm quite partial to meat pies, but I will settle for bread and cheese, if needs must."

The other man didn't answer, refusing to be baited. The focused way the man worked, going about the room lighting more candles, worried Aramis. This was someone on a mission, focused and unwavering. The room for mistakes in such a mind set was, sadly, too small for Aramis to be able to properly explore.

"That insolence you seem unable to tame will serve you well in the coming hours," the man stated, as if looking at him for the first time. "Long as they may become if you do not cooperate."

Aramis barely had time to process what the man's words before he heard metal sliding against metal and his right arm was brutally yanked up. Forgetting about everything else but the grinding pain of bone against bone inside his arm, the Musketeer clumsily tried to compensate, pressing his feet against the ground to gain more height. The long chains linking his ankles, however, had become entangled during his restless in the night, choosing that moment to take offense in his clumsy movements. The inevitable happened and he lost his balance. Looked down.

His head hadn't moved all that much before piercing pain forced him to stop. Aramis froze a second too late, as the prongs against his jaw scraped against bone and, finding resistance on one end, sunk the sharp edges on the other end straight into his chest.

The sudden income of pain, from four simultaneous sources, was too incisive and overwhelming to allow for any other feeling or action. He could not breathe or scream or even let the air out of his lungs. It was all encompassing and demanding, like time itself had stopped to make way for such agony to pass. Still, it failed to drown away the sound of metal scraping against bone as the lower prongs settled against the edges of Aramis' collarbones and _skimmed_ the bone.

Grinding his teeth together, bloody lips trapped in between, Aramis was hardly aware of the keening sound escaping his mouth. All he could hear was the scraping and the grinding, like sharp nails against his heart, scratching his life away.

"There, there. No need for that."

The man's voice reached from the fog of pain in the young man's mind. It was too close for comfort, too much like the _promise of_ comfort for Aramis' liking.

Aramis was sure he had lost his senses for a moment there, because he could not recall bending his knees or having both his arms extended towards the pillars with such taunt pull that he was sure they would part at the elbow. He certainly did not recall the man standing in front of him, pushing his sweaty hair away from his face.

Cold blue eyes met his with hardly veiled hunger. The Musketeer forced himself to not pull back and recoil from the disgust such a look caused him. The action would achieve nothing more than to cause that man more pleasure and Aramis more pain.

He could feel the metal prongs piercing his skin, pushing against bone like anchors. Even though he couldn't look down far enough to see them, he had no wish to push them further in, not when the pain of his last mistake had yet to recede.

"Now," the man said, moving away to fetch a leather bag from the floor. "I must insist that you listen very carefully to the words I'm about to say. They may very well save you from unnecessary pain. More pain, that is," he added with a cold smile.

Aramis ignored him, concentrating instead on keeping his breaths shallow. Every movement of his chest shifted the piercing ends of the iron fork and stirred his growing nausea.

"In exchange for a full confession of your crimes," the man went on, certain of his captive audience, "the Cardinal is willing to grant you the clemency of dying by the musket, instead of the traitor's execution that you deserve."

"And what crimes might those be?" Aramis murmured, too curious to keep his silence despite the agony that moving his jaw to speak caused. As far as he knew, the only crime he stood accused of was murdering Gerard. "Are they so vile that the Cardinal saw fit to hide me in his secret lair instead of questioning me at the Châtelet, like everyone else?"

The silence that answered him told Aramis that the man had not been amused by his questions. Unable to move his head, Aramis could hear him walk somewhere behind him, slowly, methodically, like a big cat prowling his prey.

"Let's not play games, Aramis," the man finally said, his voice so close that Aramis shivered. It felt like gun oil, sliding inside his ear. "We both know that you are too stubborn to sign any sort of confession and we both know what comes next," he went on, moving to where the Musketeer could see him. In his hands, Aramis realized with a shudder, was a gunpowder pouch and a thin, short blade, its edge capturing the candle light. "When you reach your limit - and trust me when I tell you that every man has his limit - you will sign whatever I tell you to sign, just to make it stop."

"Your point?" Aramis asked, trying to keep his voice steady. Despite his words about not playing games, the Musketeer knew that that was exactly what the other man was doing.

"I will tell you of your many, hideous, crimes," the man said, twirling the dagger in his hand for a fraction of time before slashing the front of the Musketeer's shirt. The blade was so sharp that the cloth parted like butter, the skin underneath untouched. "When you beg me to do so," he went on, methodically cutting the linen off until it was nothing more than a puddle of rags on the floor.

Despite the biting cold of the place and his sudden state of undress, Aramis began to sweat. As a Musketeer, he wasn't unfamiliar with the tactics used in the deepest and darkest recesses of prisons, in order to extract information and confessions from the poor souls trapped there. Every now and then, a few stories would reach the surface, tales that made every free man cringe in sympathy and savor his freedom. Stories about maimed limbs and devices created for the sole purpose of bringing unspeakable pain and humiliation to those they were inflicted upon.

The fact that he could not freely move his head around and see what the other man was doing only served to put him further on edge. From the position his head was in, the only thing Aramis could see was the hilt of the dagger, a distance away from his chest and the man's hands. The intent of the position left little room for interpretation and Aramis gritted his teeth against the pain he knew was about to follow.

Still, the thin, sharp pain took the young man by surprise, not because of the intensity of it, because God knew those prongs hurt more, but because of the duration of it. Inch by inch, Aramis could feel in acute detail as the tip of the blade cut across his skin on the left side of his chest, a few inches below his breastbone, the movement so slow that the Musketeer found himself squirming under the blade, eager to end the prolonged ache. When the blade finally parted ways with his skin, without being able to look, Aramis had no idea of how deep the wound was, or how sickening was the gap it had left behind.

"The Spanish Holy Inquisition has a...preference for the more Medieval methods of extracting a confession," the man voiced, his warm breath harsh against the cold moisture on Aramis' skin. "There is no denying their effectiveness," he went on, an unmistakable hint of reverence and longing slipping into his tone. "But, alas, they seem to require too many…accessories."

Aramis had not realized that the man had opened the gunpowder pouch until he felt the sting of powder inside the fresh wound. Suddenly, what the man intended to do became all too clear.

The Musketeer willed his breathing to remain steady. He would not give his torturer the pleasure of seeing how much the anticipation of what was to come scared him. When the candle grew nearer, close enough for him to feel its heat, Aramis bit his lip in preparation. He would not voice his pain.

There was, however, no way of preparing for the sheer intensity of the pain that assaulted him.

Once, during his time in the Infantry and in the middle of a battlefield, Aramis had been wounded by enemy fire. The musket ball had ripped straight through his right collarbone and left through the muscle of his arm, leaving a gaping wound behind. With no other alternative, he had asked a fellow soldier to help him burn the wound closed, lest he bled to death. It had been painful, but as the heat and fire receded, Aramis found that it was the smell that was the worst.

When the flame of the candle touched the gunpowder inside the bleeding wound, Aramis was taken back to that moment. Only, unlike the heated blade the soldier had used, there was no abating of heat of the flashing gunpowder, there was no end to the fire consuming him. It felt like a gunshot, only one in which the ball danced across the surface of his flesh, playing with its mark instead of following a path.

It felt like being torn apart.

Distantly, through the white haze that had swallowed Aramis' world, he could hear the sound of words and some poor soul gasping for air. It took him a moment to realize that he was the one making that disturbing sound and that his torturer was talking to him again.

"...stop whenever you ask me to," he was saying. "Though I would imagine that a King's Musketeer would be a bit more resilient than...this," he said, a look of pure disdain marking his face.

Aramis gulped down the precious air his that his lungs had forgotten to use during that time. While still present, the vivid pain of before was finally ebbing away. He licked his lips, finding his mouth parched. "You enjoy...this...far too...much," he hissed as soon as he found his breath.

Aramis never saw the smile that stretched the man's thin lips. He just felt the dagger touching his skin again, a few inches below the first cut. "Yes," the man said in a whisper, his fingers pushing the blade sideways. "I truly do."

~§~

The Bishop of Notre Dame was not the kindest of people to talk to, or even breath the same air. That was something that Athos figured out five seconds into the conversation, as the man looked positively disgusted by Porthos' presence and refused to acknowledge him in any manner, denying him the respect he deserved as a King's Musketeer and a man of honor.

The former Comte had managed to keep an expressionless face through one solitary question to the clerical man, as he inquired about any strange comings and goings in the more secluded areas of the cathedral.

The Bishop hadn't seen fit to actually answer the question. Instead, he had ventured into a series of abusive and offensive complaints about the lack of respect for the clergy in France and how one of his workers had been murdered just the previous day, probably by some gypsy or some other type of dark-skinned vagrant like the sort that seemed so abundant in the streets of Paris these days. His poignant look in Porthos' direction had been anything but subtle.

Porthos, having dealt with that same brand of ignorance and dishonorable behavior for most of his life, had just ignored the man's words, having decided to defer all conversation to his partner of a more 'suitable' skin color. He was, after all, more concerned about Aramis' fate than teaching the ignorant man a lesson.

Athos had disagreed.

"Ya shouldn't have punched 'im," Porthos let out after a while. His expression, however, was more of amusement than censure.

The Bishop had left in a hurry after Athos' fist landed squarely on his face, cradling his bleeding nose and calling out bloody murder and hell-bound threats to any willing to listen. Athos was sure that the man had gone straight to the Cardinal with his complaints, but he truly couldn't care less. He was already in Hell; he might as well have some fun while at it.

Athos hadn't actually planned to retort with violence. If he had, he would have tried to savor the moment a little bit more. As it was, it had been still quite satisfying to feel the Bishop's nose crumple under his knuckles and hear the man moaning in pain instead of speaking nonsense.

"He deserved it," he found himself confessing, a mischievous smile spreading across his lips. "And it felt good."

Porthos clasped a hand on his shoulder, the strength of the grasp reminding Athos of how solid his friend was, in every aspect of his being. "Not that I'm complainin' or anythin'," he said with a warm smile. "But punchin' the likes of men like t'Bishop won't change a damn thing about how they feel."

Athos nodded. Porthos was right, of course. "No," he agreed. "But it certainly helps to brighten my mood."

They had circled around the cathedral, carefully watching every entrance and alcove in the large structure. With their eyes on the main entrance, the two side accesses to the bell towers and the back door that led directly to the Bishop's private rooms, the two Musketeers could see no other way for Rochefort to have exit without them noticing.

More and more Athos was convinced that the man was still inside the cathedral. Doing exactly what, he could only guess.

Hoping to have more luck speaking with one of the groundskeepers than they'd had with the Bishop himself, they moved on to the gardens.

One monk, dressed in dark brown wool, was tending to the plants, a wide hat protecting his head from the midday sun.

"Good day, _monsieur_ ," Athos called out, removing his hat. "I am Athos and this is Porthos, of the King's Musketeers. May we have a word?"

The man looked up at the two of them, squinting in the sun. The deep wrinkles around his brown eyes and thin mouth spoke of a long life spent outdoors and a joyous disposition. "You may have all the words you wish, young man, although," he said, taking in their serious disposition, "there might be only a few that will content you at the moment. I am Brother Lapin. How may I be of help?"

Athos exchanged a look with Porthos, seeking the other man's assistance in how to proceed. They weren't, after all, on the King's official business. In fact, there was nothing official about what they were doing. With the Bishop already turned against them, they needed to proceed carefully, lest they jeopardize everything.

Porthos, it seemed, had no trouble in guessing his thoughts. "We're told that someone was killed here," the tall man said. "Yesterday, was it?"

The monk's face lost its mirth. "Brother Simoné, yes. May God rest his soul," he confirmed, removing his hat and crossing himself. "We found his body not far from here, at the edge of the garden. His throat...slit," he finished, his face paling from the memory alone.

"Did he have any enemies? Has anyone suspicious been seen around?" Athos inquired. He could guess what Porthos was trying to do with such line of questioning, masking their search for Aramis with the monk's death, but more than looking for a killer, they needed to know if any strange people had been around. Aramis had been taken by four Red Guards, according to the jailer; a group that large would not have passed unnoticed if they had come this way.

The monk, however, shook his head. "There has been no one here, other than the priests and monks that tend to the cathedral. Simoné was older than me, never hurt a fly in his whole life," he said, dirt-filled fingernails clutching at the edge of his hat. "He went out late last night, certain he had lost his rosary in the gardens. Why would someone want to hurt such a kind soul?"

The monk's question shook Athos' mind out of the stupor it had been in since losing sight of Rochefort. He had been so focused on discovering where the other man was and to which prison Aramis had been taken that he had been blind to all else, including the answer to his question staring him right in the face.

"Do you think...?" Porthos asked, sharing a look over the monk's bowed head.

"Brother Lapin," Athos went on, placing a hand over the distraught monk's shoulder. "Would you be so kind as to show us where Brother Simoné's body was found?"

~§~


	7. Chapter 7

~§~

The Musketeer gasped for breath, but nothing seemed to be reaching his lungs.

Rochefort stepped back, giving the prisoner a moment. After all, the whole point of the exercise was to wear out the man's resistance. He could hardly achieve that if the Musketeer's senses abandoned him.

The Comte took a moment to admire his work. The shallowness of the cuts and the fact that the gunpowder all but prevented fatal blood loss, made sure that the prisoner was nowhere near any danger of succumbing to his injuries and that Rochefort was at liberty to spend hours just cutting away. The pain that each cut and consequent burn caused, however, was sure to make the Musketeer wish that death was an viable option. Which it was not.

Having applied a few more cuts to the Musketeer's chest and stomach, Rochefort had moved to the back. While well-toned, the central part of the back, where the spinal column lay, was still fragile and with little muscle to protect it. The first cut and burn that Rochefort had applied there had elicited a growling scream from the Musketeer that had ended all too soon as the man lost his senses for a few seconds. It had not been the first time.

When the prisoner had finally started to voice his pain, unchecked and screaming with utter abandonment, it echoed through the empty chambers in a deliciously elaborate symphony. It was a good sign.

The sooner that vermin was honest about the pain he was feeling, the sooner he would be ready for what Rochefort needed him to do. What he needed him to say.

It had been pathetically easy to lead the Musketeer to his current situation, like a gullible sheep, with no discernible intelligence to understand that it was being led to slaughter.

The hardest part, truly, had been to sit inside that smelly, disgusting tavern waiting for the Musketeer to put in an appearance, after Rochefort' sources had assured him that Aramis favored that particular filth hole to get his meals.

A few coins in the right hands had assured that the drug he had supplied was added to the Musketeer meal, causing him to lose his senses shortly after exiting the shoddy establishment.

After that, it was merely a matter of picking up Aramis, take his _main gauche_ , use it to kill Gerard –another mindless sheep- in his cell and bring the two animals together.

The owner of the Inn where the Musketeer had been taken to would, of course, be dealt with in due time, another loose end that she was. Although the amount of coin she had received to keep her mouth shut would assure her loyalty for a little while longer, Rochefort was not a man who enjoyed taking risks or staking his odds with a lowly innkeeper's honor who sold her tongue to the highest bidder.

It was, after all, the same reason why he had killed the monk who had stumbled upon them, the night the Red guards had fetched the Musketeer from the garrison's brig to his current location. Though highly unlikely that any of the Musketeers would trouble himself with the whereabouts of Aramis, the idea of a monk witnessing three men dragging a forth through the gardens of Notre Dame would not do to his current necessity to maintain the location a secret.

Rocheford took off his leather gloves, running a hand through his hair and pulling a deep breath. The air was saturated with human misery; he could feel it clogging his skin and nose. Entertaining as his current task was, maybe it was time for a change of scenery.

He looked at the blood covered piece of metal discarded on the ground, marveling at the ingenuity of such a simple contraption while he pondered the utility of replacing it on the Musketeer's neck.

Sadly, he had been forced to remove the Heretic's Fork at some point, as a precautionary measure. With the number of times Aramis had lost his senses and failed to control the movements of his head, the man would've killed himself on the Fork far too soon to serve Rochefort's plans. Enjoyable as it had been to witness the man' struggle against the sharp prongs and the sound of metal against bone, it was not longer practical to keep it in use.

He would show a measure of mercy and leave with out replacing it, Rochefort decided.

His fingers carded through the prisoner's sweaty hair, gripping the dark strands as he pulled the man's head up. The Musketeer's eyes remained closed, the combination of sweat and paleness giving his skin a grayish tone.

Perhaps the prisoner would gain something from a brief interlude in their...conversation.

Secluded so deep underground, it was impossible to know if the sun still shone outside or if darkness had already set in. Rochefort had no idea how many hours had passed, but Rochefort could already feel his stomach grumbling for food. Besides, the sight of sweat and blood whetted other appetites that he would see fed as well.

He released the dark curls, allowing the Musketeer's head to fall down, chin touching his chest, before slapping the man awake.

The Musketeer started, eyes darting around as his head jumped up. His gaze was still unfocused though, taking too long to veer back to Rochefort. Losing his patience, the Comte grabbed Aramis' jaw to capture his full attention. He was pleased to feel the fine tremors coursing through the man's skin under his touch.

"You did well today," he praised, extending one finger to wipe the sweat tracing the contour of the prisoner's cheek. "Tomorrow I am sure we will make much more progress. In the meantime...I shall leave you something to ponder upon."

Turning his back on the barely-conscious man, Rochefort took hold of the last items he had in his bag, two bottles of red wine. He took a swallow from one, making sure to do it in front of the surely-mad-with-thirst-by-now prisoner.

The wine tasted bitter in his tongue, a cheaper brand than what he usually favoured, but good enough to serve its purpose.

As he had imagined, the man followed the liquid inside the bottle with intense eyes, his gaze drinking what his mouth could not. Rochefort allowed himself to relish the moment for a few seconds before tossing the bottle at floor by the Musketeer's bare feet.

The fine glass shattered on impact, sowing the stone floor with tiny, sharp shards. The second bottle quickly followed, creating a slippery and razor-sharp mess beneath the Musketeer.

"Such a waste...of fine wine," the prisoner whispered, his voice all but spent from screaming.

Rochefort looked at his prisoner, gauging the sincerity of the man's defiance. The Musketeer's body was clearly spent, that much was easy to see from the slump of his shoulders and his ragged breathes. Apart from the damage caused by the Heretic's Fork, there wasn't much blood covering the trapped man, but there was no denying that he was in pain and growing weaker by the minute. The burned flesh, the Comte assumed, should be relentless in the discomfort it caused, even hours after the initial burn. The smell certainly seemed unwilling to dissipate, permeating the small space with the stench of roast pork and bile.

Defiant, yes, but Rochefort could tell that it was naught but an act at that point, a feeble try to keep up the appearance of control when his prisoner was all but wrecked with pain and fear, the Musketeer's pride still intact enough to allow for him to admit defeat. The Musketeer' spirit had yet to be broken, but Rochefort could tell that it would not take much longer. He would just have to try harder. "Tomorrow," he offered, as he blew the candles out, "we shall discuss which body parts you can do without. I suggest you spend your night carefully compiling a list."

Rochefort cast one last look at his prisoner before grabbing the last candle and moving away. Despite the Cardinal's threats, Rochefort reminded himself that breaking a man's mind and spirit was not something that should be rushed, or else he would risk finding himself with a blubbering idiot on his hands that wouldn't be fit to confess anything. As much as he wished to quench his bloodlust on the trapped Musketeer, Rochefort decided that it was wiser to take his lust elsewhere.

~§~

It was painfully clear that Brother Lapin had been murdered because he had stumbled upon something he shouldn't have. Too many people had trampled around the place where the monk's body had been found, and while the loose soil of the garden had drunk all the blood that had been spilled, the leaves of the surrounding plants and stone wall were still stained red.

The killer had left nothing behind that could lead back to him, but a couple of feet away from the murder site, different marks could be found on the ground.

"Here," Porthos pointed. Two parallel lines in the dirt led from the cobbled road into the garden. "Someone was dragged through here."

"The monk?" Athos suggested. "Or Aramis?"

Porthos looked from the road to the tracks. Brother Simoné had said that the murdered monk had come from the cathedral into the garden, searching for his lost rosary. There was no reason for him to be on the street. "They took Aramis in a cart, t'jailer saw that much," he went on. "Looks like they dragged 'im from the cart, through here."

Athos nodded. "And the monk was silenced because he caught them at it," he added. "But dragged where?"

In the middle of the garden there was an old mausoleum, its dark grey stone smooth and pale where it had been eroded by time. The tracks on the soft soil ended abruptly at the entrance of the mausoleum, where dirt gave way to stone. Inside, they could see nothing but two tombs and a large marble cross that took up most of the far wall.

Athos tested the mausoleum door, surprised to find it open. "As there is no one in here other than the dead," he said, taking a step inside, "one must assume that whomever left those marks vanished in thin air or..."

Porthos looked around, searching for any wandering eyes that might catch them entering the old tomb uninvited. He had no idea to whom it belonged, the words above the door written in Latin, but he was certain that they were not supposed to be there. Still, he followed Athos.

The man was right. People didn't just disappear from existence like they were made of smoke. There was bound to be something more about that place.

"In here!" Athos called out, standing by the large cross at the far wall. "I believe a torch will be required," he announced.

As soon as Porthos peeked over his shoulder, he could see what his friend meant. Beneath their feet and hidden by the cross, there were the first steps of what looked like a long staircase, descending well into the darkness.

Sometime later, finally armed with enough light to keep them from stumbling to their deaths, the two Musketeers went down the stairs, hearts fluttering with renewed hope of finding their friend soon.

The air grew heavy and moldy as they descended deeper and deeper. Before they had reached the bottom, Porthos already knew where they were and his hopes of finding Aramis within the hour were squashed under the crushing weight of reality.

Everyone who grew up in the streets of Paris knew about its undergrounds, the city of the dead under the city of the living. Miles and miles of tunnels and hidden chambers, what was left of the hideouts and graveyards for the people who had lived there before. In some parts, the walls weren't even made of stone or brick, just bone piled on top of bone, empty skulls gazing on those who ventured there.

Not many did. For one, there was the belief that the tunnels were haunted by the souls of those who had once owned the bones lining the walls. The other reason - the one that scared Porthos the most - was that few knew how to navigate the tunnels safely. He'd heard far too many stories about people going in and never coming out.

"This'll never work," Porthos said after a while, his voice subdued and defeated. "These tunnels run fo'ever and there's no trail t'follow. We'll get lost and tha' won't help Aramis one bit," he explained, seeing the stunned look on Athos face.

The other man stared down the endless tunnel they had been walking, the path taking them more or less in the cathedral's direction. Already they had passed three side tunnels, always choosing to keep to the main one. For all they knew, Aramis could be at the end of any of them.

"You're right," Athos eventually agreed, his shoulders sagging in defeat. There was truly no point in adding their plight to Aramis'.

"We need t'get back to the garrison, bring more men t'help us..." Porthos suggested. But, even as the words were leaving his mouth, he knew that they couldn't do that. With the rest of the Musketeers unaware of the truth about Aramis' mission, they would only be chasing an escaped criminal who had brought shame to the Musketeers' good name. Besides, Treville had ordered them to keep the matter quiet, between themselves.

"There has to be some other way," Athos started. His grip on the torch was so tight that the light flickered, sending waves of shadow across his face. He looked as frustrated as Porthos felt. "Even if we wait for Rochefort to resurface and try to follow him again, the chances of losing him in this labyrinth are too great to risk. We need someone who can guide us."

The words struck a chord inside the large Musketeer's mind. For a moment, Porthos wondered why he had not thought of it sooner. He was ashamed to think that maybe his desire to keep his past to himself had spoken louder than his despair to find Aramis. It was the only reason he could surmise to explain why him, of all people, had forgotten that inside the Court of Miracles, there were some who knew their way around the tunnels as if they'd been born there.

If there was even the slightest of chances of finding a guide inside the Court, Porthos was more than willing to shout his connection to the place from the roofs of Paris. If such action could safeguard Aramis' life, that was exactly what he would do.

Making his decision, Porthos grabbed hold of Athos' arm and pulled him back to the stairs. "Come with me," he offered. "Ther' someone we need t'see."

~§~

Aramis was shaking. His body trembled and shivered, jerking movements well beyond his control, rattling the chains that bound him.

His mind, pushed beyond the brink of exhaustion and agony, had resumed playing tricks on him, only now, it was not the faces of his dead friends that he saw, but something else.

Some _one_ else.

At first, Aramis had thought it to be the man who was holding him prisoner in here. The idea had given him some hope, for it meant that he had returned to finish his task and Aramis could finally put an end to this suffering and just tell the man what he wanted to hear. What Aramis needed him to hear.

So many times during the previous hours Aramis had wanted to give in, to make it all end. All he needed to do was say a few words and the Cardinal's man would leave him alone, hurrying away to save both his own skin, and that of his employer.

But more than pain itself, Aramis feared that, if he spoke too soon, the ruse he and the Captain had so carefully orchestrated would be for nothing. So, he forced himself to wait, allowed himself to be pushed to the edge of despair and patiently waited for his torturer to recognize his limits. It all depended on the Cardinal's man believing his spirit to be broken.

The human shape moved closer, its shadow dancing across the pillars as the light in its hands flickered. It wasn't him. Whatever vision he was seeing, Aramis could tell that it was too short to be his tormenter. It was too short to be an adult at all.

Aramis inched forward, trying to catch a better look, and promptly slipped on the wine-covered floor. While he had mostly managed to avoid the pieces of glass up until that point, the loss of balance sent him stumbling, the soles of his feet screaming as the shards cut into his flesh. With no one around to witness his loss of composure, Aramis hissed and cursed at the top of his lungs, words so foul coming out of his mouth that he had to wonder where he'd learned them from. A few, he was sure, had never been spoken before.

His voice spent, Aramis sagged against his bonds. At least, he figured as he felt the sting of the wine contacting his cut-up feet, there was no risk of infection. The thought was so ridiculous and out of place that the Musketeer couldn't help but laugh, a dry, bitter chuckle that sounded more hysterical than comical.

He was losing his mind. Now that it was of the utmost importance that he keep his wits about him, Aramis was losing his mind.

Or maybe, it had been irreparably lost before and he was only now noticing.

The shape that had been quietly watching took a step forward, as if Aramis' admission of not being of sound mind had given it permission to exist.

"Was it you, then, doin' all that screaming before?"

Aramis startled, his head jerking up at the sound of a little girl's voice. Had his vision just spoken to him? "W-who...are you real?"

"I thought you was some damned soul, I did," the girl went on, her voice muffled as she bent to do something. "There's all sorts of demons and spirits down here."

Soft light assaulted Aramis' eyes, making them water. In front of him, a blonde girl, no older than sixteen and dressed in rags, was holding a candle to his face. "Which are you?" he forced out, his voice broken and raspy. "Demon or spirit?"

The girl smiled, tilting her head to the side. "Could ask the same about you," she offered instead, candlelight wavering as she moved around him, taking in the ugly marks covering his torso. "Too much blood on ya to be a spirit and..."

Aramis jerked away when he felt her small hand, patting the pockets of his breeches. She smiled, fingers closing around the coin purse inside. Treville hadn't taken it away when he'd been sent to lock-up and Aramis had completely forgotten about it.

She shook the purse, a few coins jingling inside. "...never seen a demon in need of coins," she announced, placing the purse within the folds of her skirt. "You're a man, then."

Aramis blinked slowly, his mind not quite understanding what his eyes were seeing. Had he just been...robbed?

"Can you help me?" he hurried to say. Vision or not, he had nothing to lose in asking and, as it would seem, payment had already been extracted. "I need you to do something for me. It is very important. Can you leave this place?"

The girl scoffed, like he had said the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "'f course I can leave, I'm not the one chained to the place, am I? But why should I help you?" she asked, pacing the room, her footsteps feather-light and barely echoing in the vast space. "Your purse, monsieur, offered little in terms of persuasion," she finally said, a look of indignation about her. "How'd you pay me?"

Aramis was sure he had heard wrong. "P-pay? You wish to be paid?" The whole exchange was too surreal to be anything other than a hallucination.

She didn't answer. Instead, she came closer, a slim finger moving within inches of one of the burns on his chest. Aramis forced himself not to recoil. Still, he sighed in relief as the girl stopped short of actually touching him. He was sure that any contact with the blackened, tender flesh would send him screaming anew.

"Is this why you were screamin'? Does it hurt?"

"Where are we?" Aramis asked instead. It shamed him somewhat that the young girl had been witness to his pain and he had no wish to discuss it. "Why are you allowed to roam free inside this prison?"

The girl's eyes thinned into slits, the hand that had been tracking his wounds falling to her side. She had been counting the cuts and burns, he realized with a shudder. "Prison? You think yourself in a prison, then?" she asked with a snigger. "What'd you do? You a thief? A traitor?"

"W-what? No!" Aramis was taken aback by the questions. Her words, however, answered one of the questions that had been playing in his mind.

The Cardinal's man wasn't keeping him in a regular prison. As Aramis had wailed and begged for the mercy of unconsciousness during the agony of the previous hours and no entity above cared to answer his prayers, the statue of the saint in the corner, looking at him with its compassionate and yet uncaring features, had been his refuge. It had also made him wonder where he could be, for the comfort of religion wasn't often part of a prison's decorations. The fact that he was being kept nowhere near a prison hadn't crossed his mind.

Treville, Aramis was sure, would be looking for him in the various correctional facilities of Paris. Wherever this place was, it wouldn't even be on the Captain's list. "Will you help me?"

"Are you a murderer?"

She looked at him longingly, searching for something that he could not even presume to guess. Her eyes, deeply blue, made him recoil into himself. They bore such intelligence and empathy that Aramis feared what she might see inside him. _Was_ he a murderer? With no memory of the hours leading up to finding himself in the company of a dead man, he couldn't be sure. And before that...it was hard to be a soldier without taking lives. "I have never taken pleasure in killing," he answered truthfully.

The answer, it seemed, was enough to satisfy her curiosity. When her gaze finally left his face and turned to the chains holding him prisoner, Aramis felt himself relax…until she tugged on them. His world turned white as the movement set his right arm afire. "CARE-ful!" he hissed, breathing through his nose to control the pain.

"I can't open 'em," she said after a while, looking at the locks. "Good quality iron these are, not the average rubbish used on scoundrels and beggars. Which means you are neither."

Aramis suspected as much. For all the pulling and prying he had done, they were still very much attached to the stone columns. "You seem to know a whole lot about it," he said, wondering to which group she might belong. "But 'tis not in opening them that I wish your help," he said, rattling the chains in frustration. How he longed to rest his arms by his sides and curl up to sleep. "I just need you to deliver a message."

Her eyebrow rose as she stared at him. "You don't wanna leave..." she said slowly, like it was the most insane thing she had ever heard. Aramis was inclined to agree with her. "Are you soft in the head?"

"It is...complicated," Aramis offered, a soft smile curving his lips. At least, he had intended it as a smile. He was sure it had come off more as a grimace. "Do you know where the Musketeers' garrison is?"

"Know enough to keep away," she was quick to sneer. "Is that what that man was? The one who was making ya scream? He a Musketeer?"

Aramis gasped. Musketeers were honorable and chivalrous men, gentlemanly in upholding the King's laws, who would never think of abusing their power. They were sworn to defend those who could not fend for themselves and torture was, most certainly, not a practice approved by their rules of conduct. That anyone could think one of them capable of...the idea was so horrifying that it felt like a kick to his insides. "A Musketeer would...never," Aramis tried, his words jumbled by tiredness and bewilderment. "That man was no Musketeer," he stated, the only thing he was sure of regarding his interrogator.

"If you say so," she said, sounding unimpressed. "Are _you_ one of 'em?"

The easy answer was at the tip of Aramis' tongue. The girl, whoever she was, disliked Musketeers for some reason and if he wanted her help, telling her that he was one of them would do him no favors.

The denial would be so easy. His uniform and pauldron were gone; there was nothing on his person to identify him as one of the King's Musketeers. And yet, to deny what he was would be like denying himself.

Even in the dark months that had followed Savoy, the one thing that Aramis had managed to hold on to was the fact that he was a part of that distinguished group of men, soldiers of France that had been graced with the honor of protecting the King Himself. During such a time when Aramis couldn't bring himself to hold a weapon and do his sworn duty, he had still been proud to be a Musketeer. For a time, it was the only thing that he _could_ be proud of.

Though he was currently accused of murder and in the hands of the Cardinal like some common criminal, Aramis knew where his heart belonged. "I am a Musketeer," he answered without hesitation. "One that is begging for your help."

It was the wrong answer, as he had feared. Aramis watched, confounded, as the girl simply turned and walked away, her small figure quickly merging with the shadows.

She hadn't said a word. Hadn't argued. Just left.

Aramis lowered his head in despair, the chains tensing and pulling as he sagged to the floor. He cared not for the glass cutting into his knees through his breeches, nor for pain that assailed his broken arm. He was a fool.

Help had been within his grasp and he had all but pushed it away because he was incapable of lying. How was he supposed to fool the Cardinal's man the following day if he couldn't bring himself to fool a vision from his own mind?

Light flickered around him and Aramis raised his head. His vision, it would seem, had been at least kind enough to leave him a burning candle to keep him company through the night.

Even if that was the only friendly company he could hope for in the near future.


	8. Chapter 8

~§~

Athos hadn't been in Paris for long when he first heard about a particular section of the city where not even the bravest of Musketeers dared set foot on his own - lest he wanted to lose it, along with his life.

The Court of Miracles, a curious name that aptly described a place where no one seemed to be what they looked and where trust and honor were left at the gateway, like dirty boots. It was the home of beggars, thieves and murderers, a safe haven for those who saw the King's laws more as a work of fiction rather than rules to be followed.

Porthos, it would seem, had no fear in venturing where even the bravest feared to go. He was either even more courageous than Athos had previously believed, or a fool. The tall Musketeer had led him through a series of streets, their width growing smaller and smaller as they moved deeper into the heart of the city, until Athos could almost feel the squat buildings closing in over his head.

"Are you certain of your destination?" he asked, suspiciously eyeing their surroundings. There were at least three men that he could see, that had been following them for some time now. Not only were they pathetically open to attack, but he was also painfully lost.

"Aye."

For a few more feet, Athos was sure that the single word was all he was going to get. His mind craved for a distraction. The fine hairs on the back of his neck were at attention, his fingers tingling and begging him to draw his sword before it became too late.

"I grew up 'round these parts," Porthos eventually added. "We're close now."

Athos made no comment, but as he gazed at the buildings around them, he found himself judging them with different eyes. Instead of looking for the glint of a musket ready to ambush them, or trying to guess if the odd shapes in the shadows were there to kill them, the Musketeer tried to see the place through the eyes of someone who might've called it home.

It was then that he started to notice the rags hanging from the wash lines, the half-starved dogs in the street and the frightened eyes peeking through the glassless windows as they passed. These people were poor and starving. And Porthos had grown up in this place.

The idea made him feel guilty about his upbringing. While growing up on the _de la_ Fére estate, Athos had never lacked for anything in terms of possessions. He had little to no idea about what it was like to have no food on his table or a warm coat to fight off the winter chill.

It made his stomach churn to think of the man whom he had come to see as a friend, a man more honorable and gentlemanly than most he had seen at the King's court, suffering through a childhood fraught with danger and need. It was amazing the strength of character that one would need to rise from such adversity and lawlessness to become the man that Porthos was now.

The sense of pride and honor, of being allowed to call Porthos his friend, filled Athos' heart completely, robbing him of his breath.

He was also glad that the taller man was with him in this hostile place. Athos was certain that the only reason why they weren't both dead already was because Porthos' face and presence still carried some weight around here.

"We're here," Porthos announced, standing still. He lowered his head, taking a deep breath. "Athos, I-"

Athos placed what he hoped to be a reassuring hand over Porthos arm. Under his touch, the dark skinned Musketeer was tense as a bow, ready to either shoot or break. "A man's past is his own," he cut in, before Porthos could pour his soul out. Athos felt like an hypocrite, uttering wise words like he was the bigger man when, in truth, he was merely asking for forgiveness in case his own sordid past was ever discovered. "What happens here, stays here," he added, feeling somewhat accomplished as Porthos relaxed ever so slightly.

Here, as it were, was a hole in the wall, covered by a dirty sheet that Porthos pushed aside to enter. Inside, after passing through a long corridor with lookouts and guards every five feet, they finally arrived at a large room.

There were tapestries hanging from the walls and at their feet. Along with the soft candlelight, it gave the whole place a cocooning sense, effectively muffling the outside world. There were several youngsters dawdling around, dirty faces and ratty clothes looking as much of a uniform as the Musketeers' leather and pauldrons.

In the middle of it all, a short man with greying hair was seated at a table, coins and jewelry displayed in front of him.

"Bourdon," Porthos greeted him with a shy smile. "Care to let yer guard dogs know that we're old friends, you and I?"

The man carefully laid a gold ring set with a small yellow stone on top of the rest of the loot on the table before he leaned back and crossed his hands over his round stomach. Surrounded by his court of little thieves, he looked more regal than King Louis himself.

Bourdon's silence was starting to make Athos uneasy. The longer it went, the more his fingers itched to reach for his rapier. The man that Porthos had so casually named _friend_ looked disgustingly non-friendly and, given the number of people inside the room, Athos was mostly convinced that the whole thing would end in nothing less than bloodshed. Soon, rather than later.

"A _Musketeer_ , Porthos?" the man finally said, eyeing the ornate pauldron on the tall man's shoulder like it was a poisonous snake. "How th'mighty have fallen! Wha' would yer brothers say of ya now, eh?"

"This," Porthos let out, looking around, "never was 'bout family, was it, Bourdon?"

Instead of being angry or annoyed at Porthos' tone, Athos was surprised to see a smile spread across the man's lips. "I keep m'little bees sheltered, and in return, they bring me lil' trinkets t'keep me happy...it's as close t'family as the likes of us get, eh?" the man said with a shrug. "I miss ya, you know? Y'were one of me best."

Athos barely reacted to the revelation, but even so Porthos' eyes flicked in his direction, a worried look on his face. More than surprise at the fact that his fellow Musketeer and friend was once a street-thief, it was the fact that Porthos was willing to expose his past in such a manner to help Aramis that made Athos flinch internally. He was almost certain that, were the situation reversed, he wouldn't be as brave as Porthos.

"I need t'ask ya a favor," Porthos blurted out, taking a step forward. While it was clear that he had no plans to harm the older man, his action still caused a stir in the youngsters surrounding them, four of them moving closer to Bourdon, sharp daggers glinting in their hands. The bumblebee and his flock of bees, indeed, all of them ready to use their stingers on command. "A guide, for the tunnels."

"And why should I oblige?" the man asked, his eyes turning to steel. "There's nothin' you can offer me in return and I owe you nothin'."

Porthos stood silently, biting his lower lip. Athos could see that he had truly believed that this man would help, out of the goodness of his heart. Despite everything, Bourdon had made an impact on Porthos' life and anyone could see that not all of it had been bad.

"We can turn a blind eye," Athos offered, filling the silence. "Whenever we see one of your... _bees_ at work," he added, "we can look the other way."

The look of utter astonishment that Porthos sent his way almost made Athos smile. He was perfectly aware that he often came across as strict and unwilling to bend the rules, so to hear him, of all people, offer to ignore the law and allow thieves to escape the King's justice, must have sounded like he was announcing his intention to become one himself.

At least Porthos knew him well enough to know that he wasn't making the offer merely to gain Bourdon's favor. The offer was real and Athos' honor would never allow him to not follow through on what he was promising. Though Porthos eyes were begging him to take it back, to not tarnish his Musketeer reputation in such a manner, Athos could only be grateful that the man chose to remain silent.

Bourdon's attention settled on Athos for the first time since they had entered this gloomy place. His eyes roamed over him, judging from a distance. "We have no need for your charity, _Musketeer,_ " he snarled. "M'bees can take care of themselves very well."

"Help us," Porthos chimed in, "and we'll be in your debt... _I'll_ be in your debt."

It was Athos' turn to stare. He did not care for how those words had sounded, for he could only think of the dire things that would be asked of his friend in return. Even if Treville was willing to ignore the man's past, something Athos was sure he was aware of, the Captain would not condone a Musketeer doing anything outside the law. "Porthos..."

Bourdon seemed to deliberate over Porthos' offer far longer than Athos was comfortable with. If the man said yes, they would have a chance to find out where Aramis was - but it would be at the expense of Porthos' honor. Aramis would be as happy about it as Athos currently was.

The man rose from his chair, walking slowly towards Porthos. When he grabbed the bigger man by his neck and back and pushed his head against the table, Athos surged forward, sword in his hand as if summoned there by magic.

Immediately he felt the press of a dagger against his side and another in his back. More than that, however, it was the quiet way in which Porthos allowed the smaller man to keep him trapped that stayed his hand.

"Wha' is so important for ya t'go pokin' about down there?" Bourdon asked. "Important 'nough for ya to come crawlin' back?"

"A friend," Porthos voiced without hesitation. "A brother-in-arms."

"Another Musketeer?" Bourdon hissed, releasing him with a shove. "'m not riskin' one of m'bees for that scum!"

"I saw one," a small voice said from the end of the room. "Earlier on...in them tunnels."

Athos' heart skipped a beat and relocated to his mouth. The young girl who had spoken moved closer to the table, pulling something from a pocket in her skirt. Even from a distance, he recognized it well enough.

Tired of seeing Aramis fishing for loose coins inside his breeches' bottomless pockets, he and Porthos had decided to gift him with a small leather pouch, embroidered with a simple _fleur de lis_ , to keep his money in. The same pouch the young girl had just tossed on top of the table.

"You saw him! Where? How fares he? Is he hurt?"

The questions poured out of Porthos' mouth like a stream of rushing water. He hadn't failed to recognize the pouch either.

The girl opened her mouth to speak, but a look from Bourdon rendered her mute. "I don't recall sayin' that I'd help ya, Porthos," he said, a dangerous glint surging into his eyes. "Though it seems t'me that, now, I'm in a rather privileged position to help ya save yer...brother."

Athos' blood turned into ice. He knew where this was going and found himself helpless to make it stop.

"Wha' do you want, Bourdon?"

The older man picked up Aramis' pouch, jingling the few coins inside, taunting Porthos. "There's a man workin' the same...trade as us," he went on, his tone casual and relaxed. "A few days hence, he made me lose one of me best workers...almost as good as you, that lad was."

"Get to your point," Porthos growled, his eyes fixed on the pouch in the man's hands. Now that he could see it better, Athos noticed the dark stains on the leather.

"I wish to repay 'im in kind," Bourdon spat, throwing the pouch onto the table. "I want ya t'rob him of his best thief. Do that, and I'll allow my lil' bee to take ya t'yer friend."

"Porthos, no! You cannot...Aramis would hate himself for it!"

Athos' words, however, fell on deaf ears. Porthos had a determined and feral look in his eyes and, in that second, Athos realized that there was nothing that the man would not do for his friends. It was, at once, humbling and terrifying.

"Who is he? Where do I find 'im?"

" _Her,_ " Bourdon corrected with a yellow-toothed smile. "Sarazin holds court at the Moonlit Tavern. Ye'll find her there."

Porthos hands were tight fists, all of his barely-contained anger and frustration apparently trapped under his knuckles. "Fine...tell us where Aramis is and I'll do what'ver ya want after."

Bourdon laughed heartily, hands slapping his thighs in a show of utter amusement. "I'd forgotten wha' a jester ya were, Porthos!" he said, between chuckles. The second his mirth died down, he snapped his fingers and pointed to Athos.

Athos could guess what was to come even before he felt himself being grabbed from behind and pushed to the floor on his knees. The world disappeared from view as a burlap sack was pulled over his head. Still, Athos could hear Porthos' harsh breathing and Bourdon's raspy voice. "Ya will do this now, and ya'll be quick about it," the man declared, footsteps echoing between his words. "Yer friend and us will be waitin' fer ya...right here."

~§~

The old map of the catacombs that the Cardinal had provided was meticulously accurate, allowing Rochefort to walk the underground tunnels with the same ease he could navigate the Louvre's many corridors.

The place stank of mold and animal feces, but the Comte's mind was too troubled to take notice of such trivialities. His thoughts refused to quiet down and the visit to his favorite brothel, rather than work towards easing his strain, had left him rather unsatisfied and feeling more jittery than before.

The prospect of disappointing the Cardinal made him hot with anger and not even the release that sex provided had managed to dilute the feeling. The only way he would be able to quell the itchy feeling under his skin was, Rochefort figured, to make the prisoner bend to their wishes and be done with it.

Rounding a sharp turn, Rochefort descended the short steps that lead into the old chapel. Even before he could see him, the Comte could smell his prisoner: blood, sweat and despair, sweeter than the finest perfume coin could buy. He could smell wine as well, remembering with a smile the state he had left the other man in.

It wouldn't be long now, he was sure. Already the Musketeer had endured more than Rochefort would've given him credit for. Now, it was time to up the game.

"Sleep well, Musketeer?" he called out, satisfied to see the man jerk and recoil at the sudden sound. The sun was still a few hours from rising, but trapped as he had been, for almost two days now, Rochefort knew that the man had no inkling of what time it was. That, at least, he could inform him of. "It's time to choose, Aramis."

~§~

Aramis lurched awake, not having realized that his senses had abandoned him.

He remembered the feeling of enthrallment cast by the lit candle, left in the wake of his vision of the little girl, his heart foolishly taking comfort in its feeble light. It turned his despair all the more sharp as the wick burned away and the light famished into nothingness, with no more excuses to burn.

In the dark, with no more proof remaining that the girl had ever been there, Aramis had been forced to accept the evidence that he was all alone. He had always been alone and there would be no help coming for him from Treville or his friends.

"So? Out with it...what shall it be?" The cold, mocking voice who pulled Aramis from the void, asked again. "What did you choose?"

Even though the sound had brought him back to awareness, his senses were still too sluggish and refused to offer him any convincing answers for questions as simple as ' _where was he_?' and ' _who had spoken_?'.

For a second, in his confusion, Aramis believed that the girl had changed her mind and returned to help or let him know that she had found Treville and told him of Aramis' location. But that voice belonged not to his Captain or any other he called friend.

His tormentor had returned, apparently eager to resume their games. The entire span of a night could have not gone by so quickly, Aramis was sure of that. Or maybe he had been so lost inside his head that hours had poured over him, unnoticed and unaccounted. He opened his mouth to speak, feeling his voice croak and wither away inside his throat. Swallowing, Aramis tried again. "Choose...what?"

The set of iron shears that suddenly appeared in his line of sight looked old and rusty, barely sharp enough to cut paper. He shuddered at the thought of those rusty blades being used to cut anything else but foliage.

"You choose," the man said, letting the shears travel down the length of Aramis' body before pushing the closed blades in between his legs. "Or I do."

Aramis could feel his heart hammering against his ribcage, urging him to escape. His breath stuttered and dark spots started to grace his vision before he realized that he had stopped breathing altogether. This was too much, he couldn't do this... "I still don't know of what crimes I'm accused..."

The man pounced, the shears moving from Aramis' groin to his head. Unable to face what was to come next, he closed his eyes, even as he heard the sickly sound of the blades parting. They closed with a sharp snap near his left ear, the resulting rush of air brushing his skin like a lover's kiss.

Aramis gasped, waiting for the pain to come, certain that he had just lost an ear. When a few seconds passed and he still wasn't aware of any new source of agony, he opened his eyes. At his feet, almost invisible amongst the stain of wine and glass, was a lock of his dark hair.

"That was not the question I asked," the man hissed, his face inches away. Aramis could smell wine and...something…else that he dared not identify, in his breath. "What do you chose?"

For the first time since the man had issued his threat, Aramis found himself considering an answer, pondering which body part he could do without. His mind shuddered and went blank for a second at the enormity of the demand, but still he forced himself to think.

As a Musketeer, Aramis knew that his hands and eyes were the most important tools of his trade. If he were to lose the use of either, he would be of no service to the regiment. Perhaps a toe? He would still be able to walk if he had less than ten toes, would he not?

"You take too long," the man said, his words heavy with boredom, as he moved to Aramis' right hand. "I think we'll start with a thumb..."

"No!" Aramis let out, not bothering to hide the sheer panic that laced his voice. He would never be able to load his pistol again without his right thumb. "Please...d-don't," he begged.

The man's reaction to the broken tone was not lost on Aramis. His tormentor's breathing sped up and there was a pink flush to his cheeks that had not been there a moment before. He was excited, like the women whose ears Aramis whispered poetry into, before bedding them.

Hiding his revulsion at the reaction, Aramis' terrified mind decided to play on that emotion. The Cardinal's man seemed to enjoy debasing and humiliating others...Aramis could give him that.

The feeling of his right thumb being pulled away from his fisted hand and the rusty blades adjusting around it made certain that there was little acting required on Aramis' part. The tears, however, took some effort. "Please...don't...anything, I'll do anything, say anything..." he mumbled, feeding anger into his despair, praying that the other man bought his act before he actually lost a finger.

The man ignored his pleas.

The shears did not stop and Aramis' panic increased tenfold. Carefully cataloguing every sensation coming from the menaced finger, the Musketeer could feel the cold press of iron against his skin, could sense the pressure slowly rising as the blades closed around his thumb, hot blood rushing out as iron broke through skin.

It was his last resort, one that Aramis had no wish to use, but one that he preferred largely over losing part of his hand. The ultimate humiliation that, if his judgment of the Cardinal's man character was correct, would provide distraction enough to maybe save his finger from ending up on the floor.

Closing his eyes, Aramis let his bladder go.

The lack of any liquids over the past day or more meant that there wasn't much to fill his bladder, but still, he had felt the pressure rising for the past few hours. Shame and a deep sense of manners had stopped him from allowing that pressure a release before. But now...now it was the perfect illustration for the amount of fear he needed the other man to believe him to be feeling.

The shears stopped their movement and pulled away. Aramis, breathing hard and with his chin hanging close to his chest, lacked the courage to look up and find out if his finger was still attached or not. It hurt enough for him to believe that it was nothing more than a stub now.

"You killed Gerard," the man's voice pierced through the haze of pain and shame Aramis had fallen into. "Say it!"

"I...killed Gerard," Aramis obediently repeated. Not knowing for sure if those words were true or a lie made them feel like heavy stones, sitting in the pit of his stomach.

"You killed him because he was the only accomplice left," the man went on, grabbing hold of Aramis' hair and pulling his head up, looking into his eyes. "He was the only one who could incriminate you for your part in the garrison's attack."

Aramis' eyes widened, a studied reaction that he was sure the other man would expect from him. The Captain had already told him about the Cardinal's intent to lay the blame for what had happened on him. This, he realized, was the moment he'd been waiting for. "What?"

"I'll make this easier for you, Aramis," the man offered, hissing his name like it was a curse. "You killed Gerard and tried to blow up the garrison because you are a Spanish spy, ordered to plant chaos and disorder amongst the King's own guards. You were responsible for the explosion, just as you were responsible for that whole Savoy debacle," he went on, smiling at Aramis' sharp intake of breath. "Yes...I know all about that."

Aramis felt his blood turn to ice at the mention of Savoy. The faces of his dead brothers exploded like lightning bolts inside his head. He closed his eyes against the onslaught of voices filling his mind. What was the Cardinal's man implying?

"Do you really want the judges to know how you plotted, how you betrayed your fellow Musketeers into their early graves? How you hid yourself away and watched as they were butchered in their beds, while you bartered your life for theirs? Do you want them to know who you truly serve?"

"That's not true...that's not true," Aramis whispered. God...what was the man saying? No one would believe that. No one wo- "Those are lies!" he screamed, harder and louder than he had screamed before for any of his wounds. None, it seemed, had hurt and made him bleed as much as implying that his brothers were dead because he had sold them out. "Please...stop these lies..."

The shears moved once more, blades twisting around the same finger. The mere contact brought fresh tears of agony to Aramis' eyes, even as he looked on dispassionately. The tiniest pressure and it would snap free….

"Admit your guilt, Musketeer, and I might allow you to die without the shame of being branded a traitor by your own kind."

Aramis listened to the distant words through a daze of cold, swirling winds and the dying cries of twenty soldiers. There was something that he was supposed to do, he knew that much, but for the life of him, he couldn't bring himself to find it important enough to be remembered.

Why was he doing this? What was so important that he had allowed himself to be pushed to the brink of madness and despair?

Different faces replaced the frozen, dead ones of that distant, cold forest. Burned ones, faces in pain, maimed brothers, attacked at home, once again killed in a place where they thought they'd be safe.

Aramis forced himself to focus, telling himself that if he let this go now, the Cardinal would never pay for what he had done to the garrison and those who called it home. His home.

He sucked in a breath, words rushing from his lips. "I can't confess...no one would believe it... Treville has -" he bit his lip, stopping himself from saying the rest, breath catching in his chest as he waited for the other man's reaction. _Take the bait,_ he begged silently, _please God, let him take the bait._

~§~

Porthos was fuming under his composed manner, more angry at himself for being such a fool than at Bourdon for being true to who and what he was. Going to the older man for help had been the last resort of a desperate man and, while it had brought them a step closer to Aramis, his foolish actions might as well have placed them miles away.

He knew Bourdon, had been under the man's tutelage for years until Porthos became too old for the kind of schemes that Bourdon preferred. He, Charon and Flea had moved on, working a scheme of their own and earning their independence, up until Porthos had decided that there was more to life than picking pockets and stealing trinkets from rich folk's homes. He had left it all behind -had left _her_ behind- , joined the Infantry and hadn't looked back since.

He should've known that Bourdon wouldn't help him just for old-times' sake. Everything with the man was bartered and bargained for. Aramis' life would be no different, no matter how much Porthos wished it.

And now he had the lives of not only one, but two of his friends, in his hands. And those hands were shaking with anger and frustration.

Seeing Aramis' leather purse and knowing that his friend was within arm's reach, had sent Porthos' mind into overdrive. Anything Bourdon would've asked of him then, he would've said yes.

Not that Porthos had planned to rekindle his connections with the world of petty thieving, but he knew that, once he had Aramis back, safe and sound, he could easily deal with Bourdon and his schemes.

He'd forgotten what an old fox Bourdon was. And now, Porthos found himself with a shadow at his back and being pushed into killing some woman whose only crime - other than the thieving - was to work for the competition.

Soldiers didn't kill helpless people, women and children. It had been one of the first lessons he had been taught when Porthos had joined His Majesty's armies. It was a needless lesson for him, but a motto that he was glad to find in practice amongst armed men. It was one of the first things that had made him feel like he belonged there.

Porthos and the man Bourdon had sent with him moved like twin specters through the streets. Turning left, he could see the Moonlit Tavern at the end of the street, the sign above the door swinging gently in the evening breeze.

For a time, Porthos had entertained the idea of getting rid of his shadow and going back for Athos. Appealing as the idea was, he knew perfectly well that, despite his words, Bourdon would take his friend someplace else inside his labyrinthine little realm, someplace that would take time for Porthos to reach in time. Besides, he was perfectly aware that the shadow he could see was not the only person Bourdon had sent to keep an eye on him. Scattered through the streets of Paris, the old man had eyes and ears everywhere. Athos' throat would be slit and his body would vanish before Porthos could even take three steps in the wrong direction.

They waited outside the tavern. While Porthos' face was less known in those parts, his shadow was a well-known member of Bourdon's group. It would not do to enter a tavern filled with Sarazin's people and just search for their target. They would be dead faster than they could order a drink.

Each hour that passed while nothing happened, Porthos' anger and frustration grew. His stomach turned, acid burning his insides as he worried himself sick. He had failed to extract any guarantee from Bourdon that Athos would not be harmed and Aramis...

He'd seen the dark stains on the leather purse and, as much as his mind wished to ignore the implications, Porthos couldn't fool himself for long. He knew that Rochefort's treatment of his friend would have not been gentle; he knew what lengths were sometimes taken to push someone into a confession. When his mind wasn't busy trying to fool itself, it was engaged in conjuring up the most vile and tormenting forms of torture, imagining the condition in which they would find their friend...if they found him at all.

"That's her," his shadow supplied.

Porthos looked at the slender figure draped in a dark cloak as she passed, unaware of their intentions. She wasn't as young as Porthos had imagined, more of a young woman than a young girl, a beautiful woman from what he could glimpse. As if sensing his gaze, pale green eyes lifted from the ground and met his for a few seconds as she passed. Dismissing him as one more drunken vagabond wandering the streets, the woman paid them little interest as she hurried on her way.

Porthos and his shadow followed at a distance. The Musketeer grasped the hilt of the hidden blade inside his sleeve, honor and duty furiously battling with love and brotherhood inside his heart. The most dreadful question hammered inside Porthos' skull, threatening to render him senseless if not answered in haste. Was he truly prepared to sacrifice this woman's life to save his two brothers?

Covered in shame, and for a fleeting moment alone, Porthos dared to admit to himself that his answer was, unmistakably, yes.

~§~

AN: Bourdon means bumblebee in French.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN** : I want to say thank you to every single one of you wonderful people who have been following, commenting, liking or simply reading this story so far. Every time I post a chapter, you guys make me feel like I'm not an insane person shouting in the wind, that I'm writing something that someone will actually read and, hopefully, enjoy. So, thank you!

As far as I can tell, after this chapter there will be two more, possibly three and the story will be done. So, nearly there folks!

And because it's been far too long since I've embarrassed her, I want to renew my deepest gratitude to my beta reader, **Laurie_bug** , who has been beyond amazing in her help and mad skills, because -trust me- betaing for a non-English native ain't an easy ride!

See you all soon!

~§~

By the time the hood was removed from his head, Athos had long lost all and any sense of direction as to where they were going. The room was smaller than the one he'd been before, a single window opening to the street outside. Night had fallen around them, making it a full day since Aramis had been taken.

And now Porthos...

Athos could not conceive that the other man had surrendered to such vile terms. That he had so easily cast aside his honor and chivalry for the fleeting chance that something good _might_ come out of this. The fact that Athos' own life was now being held over the other man's head only added to his own anger and annoyance. What had Porthos been thinking?!

Though it was true that he hadn't known his fellow Musketeer for all that long, Athos had no doubts about Porthos' strength of character. He was not a cold-hearted murderer, no matter what his upbringing might have been.

Whatever the taller man was planning to do, Athos silently urged him to do it with haste. He could see in his captors' eyes that they didn't like the situation and disliked his presence in their midst even more. As far as Athos could tell, they looked more eager to slide a blade between his ribs and be rid of the nuisance of his existence than to keep guard.

The girl who'd claimed to have seen Aramis was there was well, keeping to the shadows, watching him. Though she kept her distance, she seemed more curious than hateful, assessing him.

Playing a hunch, Athos slid back against a wall and sat on the floor, as far away from his 'guards' as he possibly could. It took less than ten minutes for the young girl to plant herself in front of him, her raggedy skirt surrounding her coiled legs like the opened petals of a colorful flower.

"Wha' do they call ya?"

Athos pondered the benefits and disadvantages of supplying his name to one of his captors before he reminded himself that he was no longer a Comte and, therefore, worth no ransom to anyone. "Athos," he replied, refraining from adding his usual ' _at your service_ '. There was absolutely no service that he would gladly provide to that people.

"Ya don't look scary enough t'be a Musketeer, Athos," she said after a while.

Athos looked at her at length, trying to see past the grimy cheeks and the hair matted with straw and dirt. He could see the sharp glint of intelligence in her eyes, the elegance of her neck and hands. Were it not for the bad fortune of being raised in a place like the Court of Miracles, Athos was sure that, with proper tutelage, she would've made an excellent seamstress or even a talented embroiderer.

"Are we meant to be scary-looking?" he inquired, truly curious.

The look she gave him was enough for Athos to understand the condescending tone that he had used, even if the sentiment behind it wasn't entirely true. He had tried so hard to keep human interaction at a bare minimum for so long that, when it was necessary, he found his 'people skills' somewhat lacking. "My apologies, mademoiselle," he added honestly.

"I'm Charlotte, not mademoi-nothin'," she corrected. "Yer clothes are wrong too," she added, after careful deliberation.

Athos frowned, looking down at his attire. His black leather doublet hadn't exactly been supplied by Treville or the King, but the pauldron upon his shoulder, decorated with the Royal fleur de lis certainly was, marking him as much a Musketeer as any of his fellow soldiers. "And, pray tell, how should I be dressed?" he asked, indulging her criticism.

"Ya know, all in black and red, with one of them flashy red capes and those metal helmets that makes ya lot look like oversized pointy-headed bats," she explained. "Tha's what they were wearing when they took my friend Cecile, anyway."

Athos wrinkled his nose, like he had smelled something foul. With both regiments being funded almost simultaneously and just a few years before, there were still many who confused the Red Guard with the Musketeers, specially amongst the common folk. And the Red Guard had, unfortunately, managed to gather a rather unsavory reputation for all manners of armed brutality in the streets of Paris.

"You are mistaken in your assumptions," he explained, keeping his voice low and steady. "The reason why I don't dress in that manner is because you are referring to the Red Guard, a group of particularly impolite people, to which I have no desire to be associated with."

Charlotte raised a fine brow, tilting her head to look at him. "Ya talk funny," she pronounced, looking none-too-pleased by it. "Why should I believe ya?"

Athos pondered. She had a point -maybe not exactly about the way he talked- but about the lack of reason for her to trust him. "You saw someone that is very dear to me," he confessed earnestly. "Consequently, as the only link between us and him, you have become very dear to me as well. I would do everything in my power to protect you, as I would him."

Bluntly honest as it was, it seemed to appease her. "Wha's yer friend's name?"

"He never told you?" Athos asked, surprised the ever-polite Aramis had failed to properly introduce himself to someone of the fairer sex.

Charlotte shook her head. "He didn't look al'tha' scary' either," she concluded after a short consideration. "I think he thought I was a ghost or somethin'..."

Athos heart clenched, a reaction he'd been certain he would never suffer again, his feelings numb and cold since he had left his estate and his past behind. To think of Aramis, disoriented and pained enough to confuse a flesh-and-blood girl for an imaginary spirit...it was not something that he wished to think about.

"He wasn't all tha' happy when I ask if the fella makin'im scream was a Musketeer too," she went on, the natural chatter of the young overtaking her initial precautions about talking to him. "I don't think I've ever listened to someone scream that loud…"

Athos could not bear to hear another casual word about his friend, not when it was offered so casually and it touched upon the matter of his suffering. "Stop...please," he begged, something he could not recall doing in recent memory. "Speak to me of something else, I urge you...anything else."

There was true sadness in her eyes when she looked at him, finally realizing the impact her words were having. "I'm sorry I didn't help 'im," she said quietly.

Athos stared at her, understanding the regret. He was sorry too.

"He wasn't askin' to get out or anythin, ya know? Which I thought was real strange, 'cause if I'd been chained up like tha', I'd want nothin' else but to be out, right?"

Athos nodded slowly, filing away the information for later. The presence of chains, the fact that Aramis had expressed his willingness to remain in Rochefort's clutches, which meant that the fool was still trying to complete his mission. Athos was undecided whether to throttle the man when they found him, or commend his commitment. He might have to do both. "What did he ask you for, then?"

"A message, t'be delivered to the Musketeers' garrison."

"What sort of message?" Athos asked eagerly. Maybe there would be something in Aramis' words that could help find him.

If only Athos could gather enough information to ascertain where his friend was being kept, then he could try to escape and reach Porthos, before the other man was forced to do something that he would regret for the rest of his life. For the first time this blasted night, Athos found himself feeling some sort of hope.

"Didn't say," Charlotte blurted out, cutting through his hope viciously and unknowingly. "I kind'f left in a fit, after him tellin' me he was a Musketeer...sorry."

Athos groaned his frustration, resisting the urge to bang his head against the wall.

"I could take ya t'im, ya know," she whispered, shuffling closer. "Bourdon need not know, fer all I care."

Athos smiled, silently vouching that this young woman would never want for naught again in her life, even if he had to resort to becoming a thief himself to assure that. "Charlotte...were you a few years older, I would kiss you."

"Ewwhhh!"

~§~

Rochefort knew the exact moment when the Musketeer's will broke under his ministrations, as it happened precisely when he had foreseen it. It seemed utterly silly and pointless to try and preserve one's limbs intact when the gallows loomed so close, but such was human nature. No man could escape it, and his prisoner was no different.

It was, perhaps, what made hope as much of a curse as it was a useful tool. Hope that things would become better, hope that there was some escape from the noose. Hope that, if one cooperated, everything would go back to normal in due course.

Even as he ordered the Musketeer to choose which body part he wished to lose, Rochefort could see the pathetic man calculating and weighing the pros and cons of what he could afford to be without. The stupidity of the exercise was such that the Comte had to restrain himself from just claiming an eye and being done with the man's foolish hopes, once and for all.

As the smell of urine permeated the air, Rochefort knew he had won. If fear ever became tangible enough to possess a scent, he knew it would be acrid and pungent smell of piss.

He'd lost count of the number of men and women he had, at some point, reduced to such a primal state, to such humiliation. Some as a means to an end, others purely for entertainment.

The first one had been his younger brother, whose irrational fear of dogs had made the act of terrorizing him far too easy. It had awakened in him an appetite that Rochefort had never known before, the knowledge that he could control others through their fears and insecurities.

Fear had the wonderful after-effect of clouding people's minds harder and swifter than wine. Once permeated with it, it was the perfect time to mold and twist his prisoners to say and do whatever he pleased.

It also loosened their tongues. "What does Treville have?" he asked gently. "Finish your sentence."

The Musketeer looked at him with terror in his eyes and Rochefort basked in the warmth that washed through his gut. The Musketeer's lips remained closed, but he knew that the slightest of nudges would have him talking again at this point.

Thinking back to his initial idea, Rochefort unsheathed his main gauche and moved closer, glass crunching beneath his boots as he brought the blade to within an inch of the Musketeer's left eye. Being that close, he could easily smell the sweat and fear pouring off the man, could see the inner part of his eye contracting and shimmering, could hear the halted breaths and feel them against his skin. "Finish. Your. Sentence," he repeated, pushing the tip of the blade in just enough to pierce the pale skin under the eye. A single drop of blood flourished, like a ruby tear.

"T-there's a s-signed confession," the Musketeer blurted out, his eyes filling with real tears this time, as his shame become complete. "One of the men from the attack...the Captain got him to write one before he passed."

Rochefort's eyes narrowed at the words. He knew it had been a risk to take those inbred, foolish Red Guards with him, but at the time he'd needed the extra hands. Gerard he had personally taken care of in prison, but the other two... "Lying won't do you any favors, Musketeer," he hissed, his words driving the blade deeper. "If Treville has a confession, why is he keeping it a secret?"

The man stopped breathing under his touch, too frightened to even blink.

"Answer me!" Rochefort shouted, pulling the blade away only long enough to drive his hand into the Musketeer's frozen face. The sharp pain of his ring cutting into the man's cheek seemed to bring him out of his stupor, a shuddering intake of air rippling across his chest.

"He...he believes that there was someone else involved," Aramis hurried to say. "He's been investigating behind the Cardinal's back, gathering proof..."

The Comte snarled, cursing himself for not having thought of that. It was clear from the Musketeer's feeble attempt to hide the truth that one of the blithering idiots who'd gone with him to the garrison had been foolish enough to mention Rochefort or even the Cardinal in his death-bed confession.

"Where..." Rochefort asked silkily, his hand curling around the Musketeer's throat, "...is it?"

Feverish, bloodshot eyes rose to meet his and, for a brief second, a spark of strength and defiance flared within the dark depths. Rochefort pressed his fingers tighter, aiming to squeeze out that insurgence before it could take hold, increasing the pressure until he could see the light dimming away into nothing, the vibrant brown slowly becoming nothing more than murkiness, like a swamp.

Devoid of life.

When the man started to blink heavily and lose his grip on his senses, Rochefort eased up just enough to let him try and find some air. "Where?" he whispered in his ear.

"The Bonaci...the Bonacieux house," Aramis breathed, the words as intimate as the Comte's had been. "The clo...cloth merchant."

"Why would he do that?" Rochefort asked. It seemed hardly safe to keep such an important document in some random commoner's hands. Unless... "What's Treville's relationship with them? Answer quickly now, I'm beginning to lose my patience..."

The Musketeer's breathing quickened, as if trying to take in as much air as he could before Rochefort cut off the supply once more. "She's his mis...she's his mistress," Aramis panted, his voice a hoarse whisper. "She will be expecting one of us...one of us to...to-" he managed to say before a coughing fit took what was left of his breath.

Rochefort released him with a shove, watching uninterested as the man lost his precarious hold on his senses and crumpled bonelessly against the chains holding him up.

He smiled. Simple men could always be trusted to be betrayed by their own pricks. Treville, it would seem, was no different. A cloth merchant's house would be much easier to breach than the garrison had been, especially if the Captain's mistress was expecting one of Treville's men to retrieve the letter.

All he would need was a blue cloak to look like one of those trained monkeys. Rochefort was certain he could do that for at least five minutes. When he next saw the Cardinal, he would be able to not only present him with the confession he needed, but also the one he'd never known about.

~§~

Porthos saw his opportunity appear as the woman veered right towards a bridge to cross over the Seine.

The hour was late and the streets were blissfully empty of any passers-by. Signaling his shadow to remain where he was, Porthos moved fast and silent, keeping close to the wall and the abandoned stalls by the riverside.

He kept one eye on his prey and the other on the river below. The summer had been dry and winter, so far, had been sparse in rains, making the river run shallower than it would usually be at that point of the year in past winters. The water was cold, certainly, but not yet frozen. A small mercy he was very thankful for, for it could mean the difference between making a murderer out of him or not.

As the woman passed the center of the bridge and walked closer to the other side, Porthos made a run for it. His plan was to get close enough so that Bourdon's man couldn't tell exactly who the dagger pierced and to push the woman into the river, claiming her dead without having to produce a body to prove it. If the Heavens were generous, the woman might even know how to swim the short distance to the shore.

His plan did not include running straight into a pointed pistol. "Who sent you?" the woman hissed, the weapon steady in her hand. "Was it that lying bastard, Sarazin?"

Porthos sucked in a breath. For a fleeting moment, the woman reminded him of Flea. She had the same courage and cunning reflecting from her pale green eyes. "Bourdon," he readily confessed, owing no allegiance to the man. "But I'm not here t'harm ya."

The woman smiled, carefully painted lips stretching wide. "Clearly," she said, an eyebrow rising as she glanced at the pistol pointed at him. "The question is, why does that rat Bourdon want me dead?"

"Tha's not the question ya should be askin'," Porthos told her gently. He could see the cogs turning inside her mind, cleverly understanding what he wasn't voicing. If she was a creature of the shadows, as he had once been, she would know that a man in Bourdon's position and with his power would never take back the hit he had placed on her head. And Porthos doubted that this Sarazin that she spoke so 'highly' of would go out of his way to defend her for the rest of her life.

"What do you propose?" she asked, lowering the weapon a fraction of an inch.

"We're bein' watched," Porthos said, giving the slightest of nods in the direction he had left his shadow. It was enough for her pistol to resume its stance. "I propose we give 'im a good show," he added with a smile.

~§~

Athos regretted the fact that all of his weapons had been removed from his person. They would have made his current task all the more easy. If only by the slightest.

He'd been left unbound, Bourdon's people clearly trusting the labyrinthine ways of their lair and the Musketeers' despair to find their lost comrade as being enough of a deterrent to stop him from staging an escape.

They hadn't counted on him having a willing guide, or how strong of an incentive threatening the lives of a man's brothers could be for the soul. Particularly one as scarred as Athos'.

They had left one man guarding him inside the room, plus the other two that his new friend had informed him were just outside the open door. If he managed to quietly dispose of his chaperone, Athos was fairly certain that he could make his exit through the window.

With nothing else to distract him but the occasional noise from some lost dog in the street outside, and with the rest of the Court all but asleep at such a late hour, Athos' guard was looking utterly bored and sleepy.

As the man's head started to nod, Athos made his move. His new ally caught his eye and casually moved outside, starting a chat with the men standing guard, hopefully distracting them from any odd noises coming from within. Athos crept silently and swiftly across the room.

By the time the sleepy man noticed, the Musketeer already had a firm grip over his neck and face. His leather gloves, which they had seen fit to leave on him, helped, as Bourdon's man wasn't exactly the small and feeble type. The guard struggled, fists flying aimlessly, hoping to hit anything hard enough to diminish Athos' hold, but had no such luck. The Musketeer was smaller, fitter, and had all the incentive in the world to leave his prison. He needed to save the life of one brother and the soul of another.

The shift between muscles sprung tight with the tension of fighting to breathe and the flaccidity of a body completely abandoned by its senses came so suddenly that Athos felt himself being dragged to the floor by the dead-weight of his victim. He held on for a few more seconds, taking no chances that the man might be faking it, before releasing his hold and propping the guard against the wall, hidden from immediate view if anyone decided to take a look inside the room.

Outside, he could still hear the nonstop chatter of Charlotte and the occasional grunted reply from the men suffering through her whimsical blather. Satisfied that he had yet to be noticed, Athos opened the window as gently as he could. The hinges were old and rusty and the wood squeaked as he forced it wide.

Tensing, he looked back at the door, waiting for any signs of alarm. When he could sense none, he peeked outside. A second floor, of course, because it would be too much to ask of this wretched, endless night, for them to keep him prisoner someplace closer to the ground.

He blamed his father for his fear of heights, truly. The old Comte had instilled in both his sons a deep sense of propriety and regal manners, neither of which being particular auspicious to climbing trees or sliding down the steep balustrade of the Chateau, no matter how delightful both prospects might've seemed to small children. His father had described in such gory detail what would happen to their fragile bones should they -most certainly- fell to their deaths if they sought any kind of dangerous endeavor, that neither Athos nor Thomas had ever dared to try.

As Athos climbed out and held on by the tips of his fingers, delaying the inevitable, his father's voice returned to haunt him. ' _Bones snap with the sound of a broken twig, Olivier. Nothing but dry wood they are, the most fragile parts of a man's body_.'

Athos let go, barely having time to panic about the length of the fall before the ground rushed up to meet him. His father had been wrong, after all. Snapping bones sounded nothing like dry twigs. They made no sound at all.

It had yet to rain hard enough to make puddles, but the cobblestones were glistening with damp, making them slippery as ice. Athos landed on the hard ground, knees bent to soften the impact, but as soon as his boots made contact, he was robbed of his equilibrium and dignity, landing in a tangled heap.

Cursing under his breath, he clambered to his feet, wiping his sore backside with a gloved hand. He nearly ended up on the ground again as soon as he tried to force his left foot to bear his weight. His ankle sent shards of pure agony up his leg, causing him to stagger and groan against his will.

Athos, however, had no time to dwell upon his private misery and misfortune. The sound of wooden wheels over wet stones meant that there was someone coming and he could not afford to be taken back. He needed to reach Porthos before the man did something utterly foolish.

The street was cluttered with empty barrels, discarded crates and broken carts, some nothing but rubbish, others set to serve other purposes. Hiding amongst the hodgepodge was not a hard task.

"Ya coudn've waited two bloody minutes?" a tiny voice hissed into the dark.

Recognizing the angry tone of his newest partner, Athos shuffled away from the pile of crates he'd hidden behind. In the middle of the street was Charlotte, small hands curled around the handle of a cart filled with straw and, he noticed with a relieved smile, his weapons.

Athos realized, belatedly, that she had fetched the cart to soften his landing. "Oh...well," he found himself voicing, trying not to feel too imbecilic even as he tried to avoid putting any weight on his left leg. His captors hadn't exactly afforded him the privacy needed to discuss the finer details of the plan with his accomplice. "What's done is done."

"Men..." she muttered, abandoning the cart and offering her shoulder instead.

~§~

Aramis woke to solitude and his whole body on fire, skin stretched too thin across his aching bones. His mind still trapped in the claustrophobic feeling of a constricting hand around his throat, he tried to gulp in a lungful of air, only to finding himself coughing miserably as the rushed breath hit his bruised windpipe and threatened to close it once more.

He lost track of time as he tried to slow his breathing, feeling like sharp blades had been placed around his lungs, poking him at every turn.

Every breath that he managed to take in and hold was heavily laced with the scent of melted wax and piss, and the smell was beginning to turn his stomach. His tormentor had, apparently, left in such a hurry that all the candles had been left lit in his wake, even if most of them had melted almost down to the wick by the time Aramis took notice.

From what he could recall from those few last moments before his senses had abandoned him, Aramis knew that the man had left in search of the signed confession in the Bonacieux's possession. The game was now on the Captain's side of the board and, hopefully, the pieces were set in a way that would allow them to win.

The realization filled him with such relief that Aramis almost lost his battle with consciousness once again. He couldn't, though. As appealing as the prospect seemed, Aramis knew that it now rested on his shoulder to make sure that his life did not end in that dark and abandoned place.

Once Treville made his move, there would be no guarantee that the Cardinal's man wouldn't escape and return to exact his revenge on Aramis. And if he was, in fact, captured, it could be weeks before Aramis' location could be extracted from his mouth, if at all. The Musketeer would be long-dead by then, nothing more than a victim of unfortunate circumstances.

Already he could feel his skin growing hot despite the coolness of the cavernous space. Regardless of his optimism over the fact that all of his wounds had been cauterized shortly after being inflicted, it was still clear that his body had taken offense at the repeated assaults and had decided to invite infection in all the same.

Slit throat, fever, thirst, hunger...it was a matter of picking his choice of demise, but the end was still very clear. He needed to find a way to free himself or he would be dead before the end of the day.

Aramis' eyes turned once more to the loops securing his chains to the stone columns. Endless hours of trying to wear them out had produced little result the last time he'd checked. The unconscious yanking and pulling under his torturer's ministrations, had, however, been more productive.

There was a gathering of white dust near the stone column on his right. Willing his eyes to focus properly, Aramis looked closely at the iron ring. His vision wavered and, for a moment, he thought it to be nothing more than his imagination making him see what he wished to see. But no...the more he looked, the more Aramis was certain of it. The right side iron was at an angle, bent against the pressure.

He closed his eyes for a moment, giving thanks for such a blessing, even as the feverish part of his brain chided the Heavens above for making it the right side instead of the left.

His broken arm was all but numb, fingers lax and cold where his hand hung from the iron shackle on his wrist. His thumb had stopped bleeding at some point, though Aramis could see that it had taken a while, judging by the puddle on the floor. It was hard to tell where the wine stopped and the blood begin, both so similar in color in the poor light.

Aramis gave an experimental pull, to see how far he could push his abused arm without blacking out. Bone scraped against bone at the slightest movement and the iron around his wrist pushed against the mangled finger as he pulled in the opposite direction. Aramis screamed a string of curses until his breath ran out and all he had left was the white, blinding pain in his arm and the black spots dancing in his vision.

His eyes stung, moisture collecting in them with little differentiation between tears and sweat as Aramis sagged against his chains, favoring his aching right side.

"Never took you for a weakling," a voice sounded from beyond the reach of candlelight. "My little sister was tougher than that, and she was only five when I last saw her."

Aramis startled, his head turning in the direction of the sound eagerly. He knew that voice. It was the same voice that had haunted his dreams for months now, and he'd wondered if he would ever hear it again. It was odd that he should find it there, of all places. "Marsac?" he croaked, his voice but a whisper.

As if summoned by his calling, the blond Musketeer stepped away from the shadows. He looked exactly the same as the last time Aramis had seen him. Disheveled, blood-splattered shirt half tucked inside his breeches and a bleeding cut above his left eye. "Did you miss me, Aramis?" he asked, a familiar mischievous glint in his blue eyes. "You really didn't think I would abandon you here, did you?"

Aramis found himself smiling through the pain. If Marsac was here, he had a chance of escaping. "Help me with these," he urged. "I'm not strong enough."

Instead of coming closer, however, Marsac fussed around for a bit until he found a spot on the floor clean enough for him to sit.

"Marsac?" Aramis called, confused. Why wasn't his friend helping? "Marsac, please..."

"What would be the point of this whole exercise if you can't help yourself?" Marsac replied, producing a red apple from his pocket and rubbing it against his dirty sleeve. "I can't keep saving your life, Aramis...you know that," he said, taking a bite of the juicy fruit.

Aramis found his mouth watering, even as he cursed his friend. Marsac wasn't entirely wrong. He had indeed saved his life once already, pulling him away from slaughter. Still, Aramis would've given anything for a helping hand now that he needed it the most. After all, before, in Savoy, he had not asked to be saved.

He closed his eyes, gathering strength and motivation to put his body through the torment of yanking the chain one more time. With one last glance at his seated friend, Aramis closed his eyes and pulled his whole body to the left, wrenching the chain as hard as he could. Either the iron ring would give, or his shoulder joint would, but he wasn't stopping until one did.

Existence blinked out for a few moments, everything greying around him until Aramis wasn't aware if he was awake or senseless. A scream he didn't remember voicing echoed around him and he found himself on the glass-covered floor, right arm cradled against his chest, the broken chain dangling by his side.

"There you go!" Marsac said enthusiastically. "Now…was that _really_ so hard?"

~§~


	10. Chapter 10

~§~

The woman was no stranger to playing an elaborate act, Porthos could tell that. After all, one did not earned the title of best thieve without a good sleight of hand and acting skills good enough to perform before the King Himself.

The second he made his move to push her pistol away, she rolled with the motion and fired, aiming safely away from any vital parts. Still, it was all-too realistic and close enough that he could feel the burn of gunpowder as the shot singed his breeches, the iron ball hitting the stone bridge with a spark of fire, harmlessly, quickly followed by the weapon itself.

Porthos closed the distance between them, grabbing the woman by the neck with his left hand, thumb pressed against the silk ribbon choker she wore. She opened her mouth accordingly, a silent gasp escaping her lips, even if there was actually no pressure or intent behind his fingers.

Porthos smiled to himself. She was very good. He pulled his main gauche, allowing the sharp blade to glint in the moonlight long enough for his shadow to see, the movement swift and determined enough for a glint of doubt to enter the woman's eyes. "Trust me," he whispered, even though the other man was too far away to hear any of their words. "Can ya swim?"

The narrowing of her pale green eyes could either be from his ludicrous petition for her to place any kind of faith in a man who'd readily admitted to having been tasked with murdering her, or the fact that she couldn't actually swim. Whatever it meant, she gave him a quick, small nod and Porthos chose to believe that she had agreed to both questions.

Wasting no time in second-guessing himself, Porthos brought the blade down between them, intentionally grazing his left side in the process. He bit his lip to stop himself from voicing any pain, tasting blood in his mouth. For anyone looking on from a distance, it would be impossible to tell which body had been stabbed.

The woman in his grasp jerked in fear as she saw the blade's motion, but swiftly caught on to Porthos' intentions and reacted appropriately. With a hidden smile on her lips, she let out a strained whimper before collapsing bonelessly, her body trapped between Porthos and the bridge's railing.

Taking comfort in a silent prayer to the saint of lost causes, Porthos gave a gentle shove and pushed her over the railing, leaning forward to watch her pliant body hit the quiet waters with a resounding splash.

Knowing that the sound of the pistol's discharge might've attracted unwanted eyes, Porthos quickly grabbed the fallen weapon and shoved it into his belt, taking care to use his coat to cover the blood staining his shirt.

"Tha' wasn't part of the deal," Bourdon's man hissed as soon as Porthos rejoined him. His bony finger stabbed the air on the river's direction. "How am I s'posed to have proof of her bein' dead if there's no body t'fetch?"

Porthos loomed over the smaller man, resisting the urge to pick him up and send him into the river to check for himself. Instead, he produced his dagger, blade glistening with fresh blood. "Here's yer proof, ya ninny!" he growled, shoving past. "Now, we're going back to Bourdon's or-"

The rest of the sentence died on his lips as Porthos found himself staring into Athos' condemning eyes.

~§~

They had found them by pure chance. Charlotte knew which tavern they had gone to because, it being Sarazin's territory, they all knew well to stay clear of it, but by the time they reached the place, Porthos was nowhere to be found.

Athos supposed that they had followed the woman from the tavern to some secluded place where Porthos could kill her. The idea made him shudder and lose the precarious balance he'd been keeping, in between his sore ankle and the young girl's support.

They had been moving slowly towards the river when the sound of a pistol being fired echoed through the night.

"T'bridge!" Charlotte determined, racing in that direction.

Athos found himself rushing to follow and being hindered by a limb that refused to obey him properly. By the time he managed to reach the end of the street that led them straight to the river, he spotted Charlotte, hidden behind a crate, looking intently to her left. Athos shuffled closer to stand behind her, his back pressed against the wall to hide his shape in the shadows.

His eyes followed the direction of the young girl's gaze, and for a moment, Athos forgot how to breathe. On top of the stone bridge, towards the far side of the river, Porthos' large figure, impossible to mistake for any other, loomed over a hooded figure half his size, the glint of a blade in his right hand.

They had arrived too late to stop him.

Frozen in his spot, Athos watched helplessly as Porthos plunged the dagger down and, without the faintest of hesitations, pushed the woman's body over the side of the bridge and into the water. There was no sound of metal piercing flesh, there was no shout of pain, only the muffled sound of a splash as the body hit the water. They were too far away to hear any of that and without those details, Athos' mind could barely believe what his eyes were telling him was real.

Before he could process what had just happened, Porthos was on the move, sprinting in their direction. There was a man, Athos could see him now, hiding in the shadows of the buildings, a few feet ahead.

There was no point in remaining hidden now, Athos surmised bitterly. Porthos had fulfilled his part of the vile deal he had struck with Bourdon, which meant that Athos' freedom was his own again. His decision made, the Musketeer moved from his hiding place, almost colliding with Porthos as both men came rushing in his direction, arguing in hushed tones.

Porthos stood rooted in place as his eyes landed on Athos' stern face. The look on tall man's face wasn't quite embarrassment or even guilt; just plain surprise, like he had been caught stealing sweets at the King's feast.

Athos could feel disappointment rolling off him like tidal waves. He had believed Porthos to be a man of honor, had trusted him to uphold strong values that he thought them both to share. Porthos had fooled him, like Anne had. And like her, he was nothing but a murderer.

The unmistakable sound of a cocking pistol brought them both out of their private reverie. "Oi! Yer not s'posed t'be here!" Bourdon's man hissed, pointing his weapon at Athos' chest.

"None of us is s'posed t'be here," Porthos growled, pushing the weapon down even as he moved to stand in between Athos and Bourdon's man. "Or do ya want t'stick around and wait fer any Red Guard hearin' that shot back there?"

He had a valid point, one that Bourdon's man seemed to agree with, as he returned his pistol to his belt. "Go on then," he urged. "Bourdon will be waitin'."

"I see no point in wasting the time," Athos pointed out, his voice cold and unwavering as he moved from behind the protection of Porthos' bulk and addressed Bourdon's man directly. He could feel Porthos' eyes on him, but dared not look at the man, lest he lose his feeble grasp on his temper. "He already has what he asked for," he pointed out, unable to keep the disdain from his voice. "It's time we're given what we're due."

"Ya know t'way?" Porthos asked, surprised at the turn of events. "Wha' about the girl? I thought she was t'one who knew wh-"

"I know the way," Athos confirmed hastily, his eyes quickly slipping to the crates behind which Charlotte still hid. There was no point in complicating the girl's life any more than was necessary by revealing her presence. Porthos somehow understood his meaning, if not his reasoning.

"Tha's not wha' was arranged," the man insisted, his fingers twitching towards his weapon once again.

"But tha' is wha's happening," Porthos finally decided as he took a step closer. "Go back to Bourdon, tell 'im that his mark is dead and tha' we're taking wha' we were promised, yeah?"

It wasn't really a question, Athos could see that. The only option the man had, now that he was outnumbered and Bourdon held no leverage over Porthos, was to either do what they were _suggesting_ or join the dead woman in the Seine.

With an angry snarl, the man pushed past and stalked away, muttering about telling everything to Bourdon.

As soon as they were alone, Charlotte stepped away from her hideout with a smirk on her face. "Bourdon ain't goin' t'be happy, he's goin' t'kick Ant-" she started, her voice dropping to a whisper as she noticed the tension between the two remaining men. "Yer face is awfully red," she added, looking intently at Athos.

Athos sagged against his right side, finally dropping the pretense of being uninjured. Porthos instinctively moved to help, only to have Athos stop him with a cold look.

"Wha' happened t'you?" Porthos asked, ignoring the scalding blue gaze once more as he searched for the source of Athos' pain. "Was it Bourdon's men?" he added with a snarl, fury clouding his face. "And wha' is she doin' here?"

"I suggest we move rather than talk," Athos offered coldly. They had wasted enough time already and he was in no condition to run anywhere, which would delay them even further in reaching Aramis.

"Athos..."

More than his name on the other man's lips, it was the warm hand on his arm that unraveled Athos' resolution of not saying anything until they'd freed Aramis. That hand, however, the same hand that had so callously taken a life, was too much. "I can't _believe_ you just did _that_!" he hissed, turning to face the other man at last. How could he had ever looked into those warm brown eyes and seen a good man? "I thought you were a man of honor!"

Porthos recoiled and for a moment, Athos regretted the venom in his tone. Whatever unforgivable actions Porthos had taken, he had done so to protect Athos' life and assure them a safe passage to Aramis. Athos knew he shouldn't fault him for that. And yet...

Porthos was the one looking disappointed now, and for the life of him, Athos couldn't fathom why. "What?"

Porthos snarled, turning away in anger.

Where Porthos fingers had curled around his arm, there was a bloodstain left behind on his sleeve as he pulled away. Athos couldn't help wondering if it belonged to the dead woman or if he was missing some important fact in that all nightmare of a night. "Porthos?"

"She ain't dead," Porthos let out with a hiss. "It was all play-actin'."

Athos felt his mouth run dry. How could none of that have been real? He had seen..."It was all very...convincing," he found himself mumbling, now certain that he had offended his friend deeply. "The blood?" he asked, a pang of unease and worry consuming him.

"None of yer concern," Porthos offered. "Which way we goin'?"

~§~

Aramis looked up tiredly at the wall his shoulder had collided with, in the narrow passageway he was trying to navigate. He had been so concentrated on his shuffling feet, doing his best to not stumble over the length of chain between his ankles, that the close proximity of the wall had taken him completely by surprise.

The tunnel had started out relatively wide, walls made of light stone, similar to the chamber he had left behind. Now, though, stone had given place to packed dirt and brick. It looked so soft and inviting that Aramis found himself leaning in further, until his head was resting against the wall. He allowed himself a few minutes of quiet, his body humming with heat, exhaustion and pain.

He had no idea where he was going. And neither did Marsac, he was sure of that.

It was only when the earth walls began to be replaced by the bones of the dead, that Aramis understood where Marsac was leading him. The scourging heat, the dragging chains, the bones... this was Hell. It could be no other place.

Aramis knew he wasn't the best of men, he wasn't even the bravest and certainly not the most pious of men… but surely he did not deserved Hell? He had tried so hard to make up for the lives he had failed to save...

"You promised you'd show me the way out," Aramis croaked, the words coming out in puffs of dust. To his surprise, he found himself on the verge of tears. Marsac had tricked him, betrayed his trust. "I cannot follow you to Hell."

Marsac stopped in front of him, sad blue eyes trapping Aramis in his gaze. There was so much left unsaid in his look, so much recrimination that Aramis took a step back, frightened of what he was seeing. The wall at his back stopped him from retreating any further and suddenly the whole weight of the small space was upon him. Aramis fell to his knees, his strength spent, barely feeling it as he hit the ground.

"No Aramis, you cannot follow me," Marsac finally said, a thin smile spreading across his lips. "You never seem to follow, do you?"

The wounded Musketeer refused to hear the truth behind those words, but deep down he knew that Marsac was right. He had failed to follow his dead comrades in death and he had failed to follow his brother as he...

Aramis knew what would come next. He'd experienced it before, had been unable to stop it from happening before. Still, he shook his head in denial.

Marsac turned his back on him, pulling the pauldron from his right shoulder and letting it drop to the ground as he walked, the leather turning to dust as it touched the dark earth.

"Marsac..." Aramis called out. Marsac was right, he could not follow. He lacked the strength to do so. "Don't leave me alone in here..." _...surrounded by the dead_ , he stopped himself from saying. "Come back!"

But it was already too late. The shadows ate away at Marsac's form, leaving nothing behind but an empty tunnel and Aramis, slumped against the wall, holding out a candle whose light was slowly dying.

~§~

The sky was covered in dark clouds, barely allowing for the first rays of sun to peek through, turning dawn into nothing but a pale mirror of the night.

The only reason why Treville was aware of the beginning of a new day was the fact that Madame Bennoit's rooster, two houses down, had already crowed at least twice since the Captain had left his office. How the damn beast was aware that the sun was up, hidden as it was by the dark skies, he had no idea.

He hadn't slept. Had barely managed to sit still for any portion of the night. The horses, in their stalls beneath his quarters, should be weary and sick of his constant pacing back and forth.

It was probably what he most despised about being in command. Being left behind, not knowing how things were proceeding, having to wait for his men to report back for him to find out.

Aramis was nowhere to be found. If he was in any of the prisons controlled by the Cardinal, the man was not sharing that information.

And now, Athos and Porthos had gone missing as well. Last he had heard of them was through a hastily-scribbled note brought by a street vagrant, vaguely reporting that they were close to finding Aramis' location and had gone in search of a guide.

A guide! Why in heaven's name did they need a guide to take them to Aramis?

And the Cardinal...the man had looked positively smug every single time they had crossed paths at the palace the previous day, enough so that Treville had made his excuses to the King and retreated back to the garrison, claiming important business to attend to...lest his common sense abandoned him and he put his fist through Richelieu's teeth.

The First Minister had never forgiven nor forgotten the fact that, when forming his elite guard, the King had chosen Treville, and not him, to command them. He had been forced to stand on the sidelines, watching as Treville took his pick of the best that France had to offer in terms of soldiers and fencing champions and added them to his ranks. And most aggravating of all, there were no noblemen throwing money at Cardinal to confer on their sons the honor of being a part of the Red Guard as they often did for the chance to be a Musketeer.

The Cardinal had created the Red Guard out of spite, to prove he could do better than Treville. And he'd lived in that state of mind ever since.

The very fact that Richelieu was not in control of the Musketeers was, Treville was sure, the main reason for all their recent troubles. The Captain was bound to silence by his own position and decisions, but the knowledge that there was a soldier in Treville's regiment, free to open his mouth and speak about the travesty of Savoy and unmask the truth about what had truly happened there...that was too much uncertainty and lack of control for the Cardinal's taste.

Hopefully, that same compulsion to be in control would also be his downfall.

As if summoned by Treville's dark thoughts, a young woman hurried into the garrison courtyard. He could barely catch her features in the dim light, but as her eyes rose to the balcony outside his office and met his, the Captain recognized her at once. Constance.

"There...there was a man," she called out, trying to catch her breath. "The letter...he..."

Not for the first time since he had hatched this ill-advised plan with Aramis, Treville worried about the safety of the Bonacieux. The intent was to make the Cardinal believe that the confession had been left in the hands of untrained people, thus making it easy for him to obtain it. The use of violence became unnecessary when there was no fight to be had.

But the truth was, there was still a faint chance that the overly-suspicious Cardinal might not believe them to be simple bystanders, the dark possibility that he might think them aware of the contents of the letter and seek to dispose of them.

Unfortunately, there had been no one else. It could not be any of Aramis' acquaintances, for the whole idea of flogging and punishing the Musketeer was to make the Cardinal believe the regiment and Treville had turned their backs on Aramis. And Treville dedicated too much of his time to the regiment to allow for any lasting bonds outside the Musketeers.

"Madame Bonacieux," he greeted, hurrying down the flight of stairs to meet her. "Are you unharmed?"

"Oh, yes, very much so," she quickly brushed his concern aside. "The man who showed up at my door passed himself off as a Musketeer and just asked for the letter."

"A Musketeer?" Treville asked, leading Constance to sit at the table. "Are you certain?"

The young woman nodded, arranging her skirts around her legs. "He had one of your cloaks and all, though I rather think it didn't belong to him."

Treville sighed in relief. Aramis had managed to set his bait and the Cardinal's men had taken it, even down to the part of passing themselves off as Musketeers to retrieve the confession. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, it was just too long for him," Constance said. "I should know, I've sewn enough of the bloody things to know that they usually fall just to about their knees," she went on, a smile on her face. "The one who showed up at my door, his cloak almost reached his ankles! I think he might've stolen it from a much taller man."

Treville smiled, remembering the contrite look on Pierre's face when he had reported that, in his drunkenness, he had misplaced his cloak, just two weeks before. Such a garment, in fine-sewn leather as befitted a King's Musketeer, would've fetched a fine price and had certainly been sold by those who found it. That it had found its way into serving such a purpose did not fail in its irony.

Pierre, Treville gauged, was almost a head taller than him. There weren't many men who could put on his cloak and not look like a child in his father's clothing.

"I hope everything works out the way you've planned it, Captain," Constance said quietly, her eyes fixed on the men sparring in the yard rather than on him. "I didn't like the way that man looked and I hope that, whatever he's done, he pays for it."

Treville nodded, impressed by her perceptiveness. Though he was sure neither Porthos nor Athos had told the Bonacieux any details about what they were doing, it was clear that Constance had put enough together. "I will never be able to thank you enough for what you have done, Madame," he said, offering her a heartfelt bow. "What did he look like, this man posing as a Musketeer?"

Constance pulled her woolen shawl closer, as if the memory alone gave her chills. "Cold, pale blue eyes, straw-like hair," she described. "Well-spoken, but dirty," she added with a crinkle of her nose.

"How so?"

"There was blood," she whispered, extending her hands in front of her. "Right there, underneath his fingernails. I don't suppose it was his, was it?"

~§~

Porthos could clearly see the heavy limp that Athos was trying to suppress. Given that he had brushed away the other man's concerns about his own wound, he felt that it was not his place to question Athos about his.

It did make for slow progress and more than once Porthos wondered if they weren't costing Aramis precious time he didn't have with their stubbornness.

Glancing at Athos' sweat-covered face and the grim set of his lips, Porthos couldn't ascertain why, exactly, he was so angry at the man. The blatant lack of faith in his valor and honor were topmost, Porthos knew that.

But then again, he _**had**_ intended to offer a good show to convince anyone watching that he was truly killing that woman, and convincing they had been. Aramis had been found with a bloody dagger next to a corpse, and even though Porthos and Athos knew in their hearts that the more experienced Musketeer was a man of honor, they had still harbored their doubts. Could Porthos truly question Athos' assumptions when the man had seen him commit the crime?

"Porthos...Porthos!"

Porthos startled out of his thoughts to find himself looking at the concerned faces of Athos and the young girl guiding them. From the apprehensive tone in Athos' voice, Porthos could guess that he had been calling him for some time.

He looked around, realizing that he had been blindly following in their footsteps and had no idea where they were. "Is it here?"

Athos took a staggering step closer, his hand closing over the arm that Porthos held protectively against his left side. "Enough is enough," he said, his voice gentle despite the commanding tone. "Allow me to see to your wound before you fall down. I am in no condition to either pick you up or carry you...my friend."

Porthos felt the last of his anger ebbing away. Athos was certainly not the kind of person to open his heart or share his feelings; most of the time, he wouldn't share even his thoughts. He was also not someone who, Porthos reckoned, spent a lot of his time apologizing for his actions and deeds. That small sentence, laden with guilt and concern, was as close as he was going to come, Porthos knew. The _my friend_ , shyly added at the end was almost endearing in its tentativeness.

"Fine," he agreed, opening the doublet he had fastened tightly about himself and pulling his shirt up. He hissed as the linen pulled at his skin, stuck together by dried blood. There was more of it than he had expected.

"Did you do this to yourself?" Athos asked, his fingers hovering over the shallow cut. "Perhaps you should return to the garrison..."

Porthos pushed his hand away, before the man could actually touch the wound. The bleeding had all but stopped, but that didn't mean that it wouldn't start anew if someone went poking at it. "Just find me somethin' t'bind it and I'll be good to go," he reassured. He was not going to abandon Aramis just because he had been foolish enough to nick himself harder than what he'd intended. "Don't worry," he added with a smile, "done myself worse shaving."

"Remind me to never let you anywhere my beard then," Athos conceded, pulling loose the scarf he usually wore around his neck for warmth. "Here, use this," he offered.

Porthos hissed as he pressed the piece of soft cloth to the cut in his side, pulling the shirt back down and redoing his belt over it. "Where are we anyways?" he asked.

He had expected the girl to lead them back to Notre Dame, the same place where Rochefort had been spotted going in and out of the tunnels. Instead, they were in the middle of a narrow street, standing in front of a door where someone had scribbled in black ink 'apothecary'.

"Tis faster if we take this entry," Charlotte informed them, her eyes quietly and thoroughly surveying the two men in front of her. With a disgruntled shake of her head, she turned and walked to the closed door.

"Wha'?"

"Is something the matter?"

Charlotte sighed before turning to face them. "Tis nothin'," she let out, kicking the dirt at her feet.

Porthos took a step closer, sudden thoughts of the girl being in cahoots with Bourdon and them walking into a trap surging into his mind. "This best not be one of Bourdon's schemes..." he threatened.

Instead of looking scared, the girl just gave him a raised eyebrow and an impossible mixture of indignation and resignation. "Ya lot walked by three of his spotters, two of his bees and a brothel I'm pretty sure he owns," she counted on her fingers. "If Bourdon wanted ya dead, ya wouldn't be breathing down me neck, have no worries!"

Porthos looked around, wondering how distracted he must've been to have missed all of that. Still, she had a point.

"What then?" Athos asked.

Charlotte frowned. "Tis just that...yer down to one good leg," she said, pointing to his ankle, the one he was avoiding setting on the ground. "And 'im can't even stand straight, can he?" she asked, looking pointedly at Porthos. "So...who's goin' t'carry yer friend out of that place? 'cause I can't do it!"

Porthos exchanged a glance with Athos, similar sickened looks in their eyes. The implication that Aramis would not be able walk out of there on his own wasn't something that either of them had wanted to consider...until a practical young girl made it impossible for them to ignore.

"We'll deal with that when we get to him," Athos answered for both of them, his voice hard with resolve.

~§~

* * *

AN: I've been feeling a bit under the weather this past week so, this is the post that almost did not happened *g* But! With so many of you so awesomely guessing exactly what was going to happen next, I couldn't NOT post it, could I? Also, special cookies for whoever guessed who Sarazin's best thief actually was! Hugs!


	11. Chapter 11

AN: The frigging rescue, finally! Also, much was added to this chapter after my fabulous beta-reader went through it, so any mistakes you find, please let me know so that they can be corrected ASAP :)

~§~

Gambling and all manner of games of chance were not Treville's favorites. Rather than not being very good at them, it was the implied necessity of deceit and the occasional blind trust in random, luck that prevented him from ever appreciating them.

This, however, was not a game of chance, it was a game of chess, one that Treville and Richelieu had been playing for years. Two military minds, strategists at heart, moving around human lives like wooden pieces on a board.

Rocheford had been at a disadvantage from the start. To the Cardinal, the Comte was nothing more than a pawn, a discardable piece that could easily be replaced to achieve the same goal. He had been forfeited the second he had accepted to do the Cardinal's bidding.

Aramis however, he was Treville's knight. Free to move in any direction and never in a straight line, he was the strength that the Captain of the Musketeers was counting on to corner his opponent into check-mate.

Still, not all outcomes could be foreseen and planned for. So there Treville was, throwing the dice on Aramis' life and hating himself for doing so.

For one, he was gambling that Rochefort hadn't simply destroyed the letter as soon as he'd taken it from Constance. Fake as it was, the confession was the fuse by which all the gunpowder would either ignite or simply be dusted away.

And then...then he needed the Cardinal to corner himself into a place where he would have no other choice but to confess his deeds. But first...

"Arrest that man!" Treville commanded, as soon as he laid eyes on Rochefort. The Comte had strolled into to the palace gardens like he belonged there, his poise and countenance overflowing with the brash confidence and hubris of someone holding all the good cards and with plenty of money on the game.

"What is the meaning of this?" Rochefort demanded, glaring at the six Musketeers surrounding him. "The Cardinal is expecting me," he announced, paying little mind to them. "I have no time or patience for this nonsense."

His words fell on deaf ears. "Search him," Treville quietly ordered, taking much gratification in the look of hatred and the flash of concern he saw in the other man's eyes. Good...that meant he still had the letter.

"You do not have the authority to do this, Treville," Rochefort hissed, pushing aside the hands of the Musketeers trying to search his pockets. "The Cardinal _will_ hear of this outrage!"

As Pinon finally managed to find the letter and held it out for Treville's inspection, the Captain smiled. "I am counting on that," he informed quietly. Holding himself tall, the Captain looked around the grounds, noticing the number of courtiers whose attention their little display had attracted. It was time to tighten the noose. " _Monsieur le Comte_ de Rochefort, on His Majesty's authority, I am holding you prisoner, for questioning in the matter of high treason, at His Majesty's pleasure."

"You've gone mad, Treville," the blond man sneered, pulling his arms free. "That's absurd! I have done no such thing!" His protests were nothing more than snarls, hissed through his clenched teeth. "I will have your command for this, Treville!"

"Impersonating one of the King's Musketeers is not something that the King takes lightly, _monsieur le Comte_ ," the Captain offered with a smile. Any who had ever attended Court knew well enough of Louis' less than favorable reactions to anything he perceived as a trespass on his authority. Wearing His fleur de lis and royal blue without His consent was merely one of Louis most common aggravations. "The presence of this letter on your person proves that you have done just that."

Rochefort eyed the piece of paper in his hands with such intensity that Treville imagined the letter would be bursting into flames if such thing was physically possible. In those pale blue eyes, it was easy to see the pieces fitting together as the man figured out that he had been played.

"It was all a trap," Rochefort hissed. "That filthy son of a whore...tricked me!"

The Captain's face contorted into a barely hidden smirk. He had never met Aramis' mother but, from the few tales he had heard from the young man, she was one fiery lady that could probably beat some respect into the Comte's hide.

Inwardly, there was a degree of pride that the Captain could not dismiss at the realization that Aramis had played his part so well that only know Rochefort was realizing just how deeply he had been fooled. It was the uncertainty of the price Aramis had paid to achieve such a feat that made Treville reluctant to celebrate just yet.

The clogs kept on turning inside Rochefort's twisted mind and, because he wasn't entirely a stupid man, it was easy to catch the moment when the fact that he had suddenly become an expendable piece in the Cardinal's game, one that could be used for little more than saving the First Minister's skin, sunk in. The man ceased his struggles in exchange for a glimpse of Treville's eyes. "Let me go, or you will regret it," he threatened, defiant even in his defeat. Fear, however, had already taken residency in his eyes.

"Tell it to the King," Treville said, ordering the Musketeers to take away him with a nod of his head.

He had made his play. The next move was the Cardinal's, even if he still remained unaware of such.

~§~

Aramis wasn't where he was supposed to be.

The apothecary had not been happy when two Musketeers and a street girl invaded his space. He had, in fact, been particularly aggravated when Athos decided to stock up on some necessary items to take with them because, as Charlotte had pointed out, Aramis would not be at his best when they reached him.

He paid the man, of course, but it was the middle of the night and the apothecary was feeling rather contrary. Porthos' looming presence, threatening to strap the man to a chair and gag him went a long way to calm him down.

There was a passageway in the cellar of the house that led directly to the tunnels underneath. At some point, it had been used to smuggle brandy, Armagnac is the smell was anything to go by. Now, the only thing it housed was dust and rats.

Armed with their supplies of herbs, bandages and candles, Athos and Porthos followed Charlotte through the tunnels, trusting her reassurances that they weren't far.

Each time they would make a turn that would lead them into an even smaller tunnel, Porthos grumbled under his breath and Athos worried about reaching a point where Porthos simply could not go any further. While far from being a short man, Athos was not particularly tall, but even for him there were points when he had felt the need to advance with his shoulders hunched low and his head bent to avoid hitting the ceiling. Ancient tunnels were simply not made for people of Porthos' size, that was for certain.

Charlotte had actually smiled as they rounded a sharp turn and the ground beneath their feet stopped sounding like dirt and turned to stone. At the end of a long corridor, they arrived at some sort of old chapel with rows of stone pillars across the space.

Charlotte had stopped all of a sudden, looking confused and lost for the first time since they had entered the tunnels.

"He's not here," she whispered, stating the obvious in her surprise.

"Are you sure this is the place where he was before?" Athos asked, suspicion permeating his tone. After all, the only proof they had that Charlotte's claims were true was her possession of Aramis' purse, an item that she could've stolen or found anywhere but on Aramis' person.

"'tis the right place, I'm sure," she insisted. It was the slight annoyance in her words - of having been proven less than right - that reassured Athos about the purity of her intentions.

They had passed through at least three other rooms that seemed awfully similar to this one to him. None of the others, however, possessed the same lingering odors of human filth and, oddly enough, sour wine.

The reason for the later could easily be blamed on bits of glass that littered the floor, mostly concentrated between two particular pillars. Looking higher, Athos could feel his stomach turn as he saw the iron loops, high on the pillars. One of them was bent out of shape, the other simply broken.

"Someone was 'ere, alright," Porthos claimed, stooping on the far side of the space. Discarded against the wall, there was a well-worn leather doublet, a pair of boots and an all-too-familiar blue sash. In his hands, Porthos held what remained of a linen shirt, the tattered white fabric hanging limply from his fingers. The tall Musketeer' eyes, however, were fixed on something on the ground. "Blood. Fresh."

Athos joined him, gazing upon what looked like a bloody imprint of a foot on the stone floor. It wasn't hard to piece together the clues left behind to know that Aramis had been trapped between those two pillars and that his feet had become injured by the broken glass. The question now was whether their friend had left on his own, or if he had been forced away by someone's hand. The idea that Aramis had been taken someplace else to be executed was one that did not sit well with Athos. Even standing still, he could feel his heart racing inside his chest.

"Not exactly a trail of breadcrumbs..." Athos voiced grimly, holding the candle in his hand high, trying to ascertain how far the bloody prints went. "Shall we?"

It didn't take long for them to realize that Aramis' trail was leading them in circles. Either the blood on the ground had been left on purpose to mislead them, or their friend was wandering the tunnels, lost and confused. Twice at least, they had circled the same tunnel, bloody imprints lining up side by side, like an army of injured men had trampled across the place.

"Stop," Athos commanded after what felt like hours. It seemed impossible to him that their injured friend had wandered this far, and he was beginning to lose hope that they had been following anything but a fake trail when he heard it. "Listen."

The other two did as bidden, closing their eyes to better focus their ears, for at first there was nothing to listen to. And then they all heard it. Unmistakably sound. Moaning and the rattle of heavy chains, dragging across stone.

Charlotte whimpered, clinging to Athos' jacket. "Aye...'tis the cursed spirits of the underground, coming to fetch us t'Hell!"

Athos dare not dispute her words. There was certainly something eerie about that place and, even though he was not a man given to superstitions, there was still much in this world and the next that he could not claim to know.

"Maybe we should ask 'em if they saw Aramis," Porthos suggested, his voice not quite as calm and breezy as his words made him sound, but concern giving him the courage to be audacious when faced with the unknown.

As if giving Porthos permission to ask all questions he felt like, a deep moan echoed through the tunnels. It spoke of pain and misery, seemingly wrenched from the depths of Hell itself.

"This way," Athos called, leading them back to one of the smaller tunnels they had passed before… straight towards the unearthly sounds.

Porthos looked surprised and not entirely certain of Athos' sanity as he looked down the corridor behind them. "Ya don't intend to _actually_ go an'ask 'em, do ya?"

"No," Athos responded, moving ahead. "But I _do_ intend to find out what is making that noise," he whispered. Those tunnels were too dark and filled with too many twists and turns that it was entirely possible that they had moved right past Aramis and failed to see him.

These were abandoned tunnels, not used by many. Spirits notwithstanding, whatever it was they were hearing, it was either coming from their friend or from someone responsible for Aramis' torment. Whichever the source, Athos wanted to have some words.

They found the source of the noise not far from where they had veered back; a sharp bend in the wall that they'd assumed to be only an alcove, but that gave way to yet another tunnel.

In the midst of the imposing darkness, so thick that their candles barely managed to put a dent in it, there was a man's body slumped against the wall. The pale skin of a naked back captured the soft light of the candles in their hands and returned it with vengeance.

"Aramis!" Porthos called out, suddenly breaking into a run. "Aramis..."

Athos, hindered by his ankle, was a few steps behind, but even so he could see the tremors coursing through his friend's body. The state Aramis seemed to be in made Athos recoil in disquietude. "Porthos, careful," he found himself cautioning. Aramis possessed a gentle soul, but even the kindest of spirits could be pushed over the brink of sanity when given the right incentive. There was no way to gauge how their friend would react to their presence.

Porthos halted his yearning to lay his hand over Aramis' bare shoulder and illicit some kind of response from their silent friend. Instead, he cautiously walked over Aramis' extended legs and crouched in front of him, Athos following him close behind.

There had been marks on Aramis' back, the tunnel too dark to make much of what they were but enough to tell Athos that his friend was injured. As his eyes landed on the rise and fall of Aramis's chest, mostly to make sure that his friend was still alive, Athos could not help the hiss of anger that escaped his lips.

The number of burns and cuts that covered the expanse of pale skin was too many for him to count without losing control of his stomach's contents.

He exchanged a look with Porthos, seeing the same loathing he was feeling reflected there. They exchanged no words, but a silent pact of finding Rochefort and making him pay for his deeds was being sealed between the two of them in that exact moment.

"Aramis," Porthos called out again, handing his candle for Athos to hold. "Come on, mate…answer us."

Brown eyes finally opened to look at them, but Aramis' flustered and pale face and the sickly shine in his eyes spoke too much of something being very wrong and too little of recognition.

"He has a fever," Porthos let out, his voice heavy with concern. Even without laying hands on him, it was easy to feel the heat emanating from Aramis' skin. "We need to get'im out of here, now!"

Athos nodded, wholeheartedly agreeing with Porthos. The taller man, however, saw his nod as an incentive to touch Aramis. It was a grievous mistake.

A few weeks after the explosion at the garrison, Treville had sent a number of Musketeers on a training mission. Athos and Porthos, as part of the newest recruits, had been a part of that troop. Aramis, after some heated discussion with the Captain behind closed doors, had joined the group as well.

At the campsite, and despite the fact that they slept in separate tends, the thin fabric they were made of did little to muffle any of the sounds coming from within. The first night Athos heard the whimpering coming from Aramis' tend, he had afforded the man the privacy he was entitled to as a seasoned soldier. Everyone had nightmares and demons that came visiting in the night; Aramis was allowed to have his just the same as everyone else.

The second night it had happened, Athos had been unable to ignore the distressed gasps and broken words. Remembering back to when he had first met Aramis, and how the younger man had seemed to quieten with the solid presence of another nearby when haunted by bad dreams, Athos had sneaked out of his tent and into Aramis' with every intention of giving the other man a more peaceful night.

Instead of peace he got himself a broken nose and the most awkward of fumbled explanations on the following morning, for Aramis had no memory of attacking Athos in his sleep and Athos had no desire to confess to what had truly happened. So he had grumbled an excuse and had blamed his horse for the whole event.

The _incident_ did serve for him to learn never to wake up Aramis when the Musketeer was in the grasp of a nightmare.

The last night that they had spent at that training exercise, Athos had recruited Porthos' help and, between the two of them, they had kept Aramis awake and thoroughly drunk and distracted for the duration of the night. It was the most relaxed that they had seen their young friend during the time spent outside the garrison and if there were tears in Aramis' eyes when the sun begun to rise as he thanked them both for their friendship, they all decided to blame it on the wine rather than emotion.

Porthos knew about the _incident_ , he knew that Aramis had a tendency to strike first and search for recognition after, but still he moved his hand to rest against his friend's naked shoulder.

The reaction was immediate. Coiled muscles swirled around, the chains attached to Aramis' wrists whipping through the air like vicious snakes as the young man growled in their direction, his face looking ferocious under the feeble light. "Stay back, devil!" Aramis warned, his voice hoarse and faint. "You shall not have my soul!"

Porthos recoiled, either from the sight in front of him or the vile words, his steps faltering just as Aramis lunged at him. "Aramis!" he called out again, his voice cracking over the sound of chains clashing against stone. "Aramis...'tis us, Porthos and Athos!"

~§~

Aramis was beyond listening, behaving more like a feral cat rather than a Musketeer. Whatever ailment that was affecting his mind, it was making it impossible for him to recognize the presence of friendly faces around him, eliciting nothing more than snarls and curses at their presence. There was no strength behind Aramis' punches and the only thing his attack was accomplishing was to drain whatever few reserves of stamina that he still possessed.

Porthos sighed, running a hand over his curly hair. Of all the scenarios he had envisioned for when they finally found Aramis, this hadn't been one of them. His friend did not look well, that much he had expected, but the way he refused their help, the uncanny manner in which his eyes saw right through them and failed to spark in recognition...it was making Porthos' skin crawl.

There were dark marks all over the Musketeer's pale skin, Porthos could see them even in the poor lighting. Angry, blackened welts across his chest and upper arms, and the way he kept using only his left arm to swing that chain around spoke volumes about something being very wrong with the right one.

Fearful of hurting his friend anymore than what he already was, the tall Musketeer felt reluctant about using his strength to restrain Aramis' wild strikes, but when Porthos saw Aramis turn, obviously intending to run away from them, he took action. There was absolutely no chance that he was going to allow his injured friend to ignore their help any longer. He jumped and tackled the escaping man to the ground.

They landed in a heap on the unforgiving ground and Porthos cursed as the wound on his side opened anew. Beneath him, he could feel the heat rising from Aramis' skin and the shivers coursing through his body. Still, the young man struggled.

"Let me be, I will not go with you!" Aramis hissed, his fumbling hands struggling to get some sort of leverage to push Porthos away. "He left...I need to find him before he gets lost. Please..."

"Aramis!" Porthos said as loud as he dared, his strong voice feeling like a battering ram against the walls of the enclosed space. His hands were wrapped around the other man's shoulders, both preventing him from bolting once more and keeping him upright. "Look into m'eyes. Do ya know me? Do ya know who we are, mate?"

Aramis stopped fighting, his eyes finally resting on Porthos' face with a semblance of recognition. When he looked over the tall man's shoulder to Athos without spilling any more nonsense from his lips, Porthos felt himself relaxing. "There ya go...yer safe now. We have ya."

"You shouldn't be here," Aramis whispered, eyes darting around in fear as he pushed away from Porthos' touch, looking between the two of them. "Neither of you should be here."

Athos reached forward, his hand gripping the injured Musketeer's arm. "Nor should you, _mon ami_. You are injured and burning up with fever. We must go at once."

Teeth chattering, Aramis nodded slowly, the gesture seemingly taking most of his strength. "What about Marsac?" he suddenly asked, looking expectantly at the two of them. "We can't leave him here...not here. He'll be all alone."

Porthos exchanged a look with Athos, peeling off his coat now that he knew the gesture would be welcomed rather than feared. Even smeared with blood, it was something warm and dry to fend off the chill of the air and he wasted no more time in slipping it over Aramis' naked back.

Athos returned his gaze, just as confused. There wasn't supposed to be anyone else in here. Had Rochefort taken someone else prisoner?

The name itself was somewhat familiar to Porthos. He had heard it before, even if, for the life of him, he could not recall where. Whomever this fellow was, it seemed to be of some importance to Aramis.

Under their watchful gaze, they could see Aramis growing more and more agitated, the absence of this Marsac person pushing him to move away again. Wordlessly, Athos passed the candles on his hand to Charlotte and moved to help Porthos with their friend, figuring that it would take some doing to get him to move.

As the feeble light chased away the shadows in which Charlotte had been sheltered up to that point, Aramis gasped out loud, his hands pulling Athos and Porthos away from her. "Oh, God! Can you...do you see her, there?" he pointed out with a shaking finger. "Is she real?" he whispered, wide eyes gazing over Porthos' shoulder.

"Told ya he thought I was a ghost," Charlotte supplied matter-of-factly, taking care to keep her distance from the distraught man. "Tha' sort of thing can hurt a girl's feelin's, ya know?"

"She is real," Athos assured Aramis, even if the fevered man, barely conscious as he was, didn't seem much convinced. "Which means that this Marsac he keeps talking about must be too," he went on, the last part directed more at Porthos than their friend.

Porthos could only nod, figuring the same thing. But even if this Marsac was somewhere in those tunnels, they could not afford to leave Aramis there to go search for a stranger, nor could they drag their injured friend on some wild goose chase.

"Yer friend isn't right in the head," Charlotte declared with all the certainty of youth. "There's been no one else here fer a long time, not until the likes of him was dragged down here," she pitched in, her body swinging from side to side like she was dancing. "Can we go now? 'tis cold and it smells down here...I don't like it all tha' much."

Porthos hated to admit it, but the girl was right. Aramis needed to have his wounds tended to and they could not risk being caught by Rochefort or the Red Guards, who could return at any given minute. The Musketeer still was, after all, accused of murdering a man...even if there was no one on Earth who would be able to pry Aramis from Porthos' hold to throw him back into a cell. Not now, not ever. Not even over his dead body.

"It smells of death," Aramis whispered, his eyes closed, head resting against Porthos' broad shoulder. "Twenty gone and death has come to claim those who escaped...it comes to claim me and Marsac. We should have never returned..."

Porthos let out a breath, watching as air turned into mist as it escaped his lips. The mention of that many dead sparked the last inkling of recognition that he needed to remember where he had heard the name Marsac before. Porthos almost dropped Aramis as his mind made the connection. It could not be! "What did ya just say?"

As much as Porthos desperately needed to have those words confirmed, there was no one to answer him back. Aramis, exhausted by his frantic movements and all else he had endured in the last few days, had just given up on his senses and laid slumped, bonelessly against the tall Musketeer, his breath nothing more than feeble puffs of air against the Porthos' neck.

The names of the soldiers whose lives had been so cowardly taken during a training exercise would forever be etched in the hearts of the whole regiment. Baine, Rodin, Adrian, Severe, Antill...so many, so many brothers lost at the hands of Spanish mercenaries. Marsac had been one of them as well, Porthos remembered it clearly now, his name featuring amongst the wooden crosses over the empty graves at the regiment's cemetery.

Savoy. Aramis had been speaking of Savoy, speaking about it like he had been there to witness the massacre, speaking like he should be one of the dead.

Suddenly, it all made terrible sense. The Captain's behavior, Aramis seclusion from the rest of the regiment after the massacre; the way pistol fire still made him shudder; the distant look that would take over his gaze at the most peculiar times; his actions at the hunt…Lord! The King's hunt! The sight of a fellow Musketeer, bleeding over the snow...the memories it must have brought back...

Aramis, the gentle medic who wanted nothing more than hide in the sick rooms and help others find their health, was a survivor of the greatest horror that the Musketeers had ever suffered.

Aramis, who should have died and be nothing more than one more of those empty graves, even before Porthos had a chance of calling him a friend.

Aramis, who had consciously chosen to keep such an event a secret from his closest friends, and who had now been betrayed by his own feverish mind.

There were no words that could describe the thickness of sorrow and hopelessness that filled Porthos' heart in that moment, until it became nothing more than a heavy stone resting inside his chest, pulling him down. Porthos felt like crying, but his body was too numb to produce any tears.

~§~


	12. Interlude

Oh, my! I never really planned for the ending to take this long to be written, but I guess that's what you get for not taking in account the difference between being home with a broken foot and free to write all day long and being back to work, getting your ass kicked left and right. So...

I feel I owe you guys, first, a huge apology for leaving you hanging for this long and second, some sort of resume of what this story has been about so far, for those of you still interested.

It goes like this: _a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away..._

What? Wrong one? Ok, fine!

This story happens a few months after Aramis, Athos and Porthos become good friends. The fact that Aramis is the only Musketeer to have come back from the massacre of Savoy is unknown to all but Captain Treville at this point. Treville has chosen to keep this a secret because he suspects the Cardinal had a hand to play in what happened and he fears what consequences it might bring to Aramis if it became a known fact.

Even so, the Cardinal hears whispers of one survivor and sends three Red Guards, Jacques Bennoit, Etienne Cussac and Gerard Gillion, led by Rochefort, to infiltrate the garrison and steal whatever records Treville has on the matter. They set the armory to explode, to cover their tracks, but only Rochefort manages to escape. Jacques and Etienne both die during the events following the explosion and Gerard is captured, only to be later murdered and used to frame Aramis for his death.

Knowing of Aramis' past as a spy, Treville and Aramis come up with a plan to lure the Cardinal into showing his hand: taking advantage of a mishap during one the King's hunts, the Captain punishes Aramis in front of the whole garrison, making sure that he falls into disgrace and making it believable that none will come to his aid if he is taken by the Cardinal. The Cardinal wastes no time in taking advantage of that and once Aramis is in his possession, through Rochefort, the second part of the Musketeers' plan is put into action.

Believing that he has broken Aramis' will and that the man will confess to anything to escape more pain, Rochefort is fooled into believing that a signed confession, implying his name and the Cardinal's, is in the possession of Treville's fictional lover, madame Bonacieux. Making himself pass as a Musketeer, something that would be seen as high treason, Rochefort procures the letter from Constance, but is soon captured by Treville.

Figuring out that Aramis was taken to the vast network of tunnels underneath Paris, Porthos decides to share his connection to the Court of Miracles with Athos and seek the aid of someone there who knows his way around. Bourdon, the current king of the Court, wants something in return for his aid; he ropes Porthos into killing the best thief in the competition, a woman working for Sarazin. Porthos agrees, both to save Athos life and to find where Aramis is; also, being the cunning man that he is, he has no intention of killing anyone, only fool Bourdon into thinking he did it (couldn't go off and just kill Milady before she becomes a part of the story, could I?)

Athos makes a new friend and ally, Charlotte, a young girl who refused to help Aramis because he was a Musketeer but slowly changes her mind about men in uniform. She helps Athos escape the Court and reunite with Porthos. Both follow her to the last place where she saw Aramis. Upon arriving there they find him gone.

Aramis, delirious with fever and pain, follows an imaginary Marsac through the long tunnels, ending up lost and nearly dying before Athos and Porthos manage to find him.

And... that's about it, folks. The rest is -finally!- here...


	13. Chapter 12

As always, none of this would make a lick of sense if not for the magic work of my fantastic beta! Thank you **Laurie_bug**!

~§~

"What is the meaning of this?"

Treville tried to hide his smile of satisfaction as he detected a hint of concern under the all the disdain and anger in the Cardinal's voice.

The King had been reluctant to summon the First Minister when the Musketeers' Captain had presented his evidence. The Comte de Rochefort was seen as a friend of the Royal family for his connection to the young Queen and Richelieu was quickly becoming the only voice that the King would listen to in affairs of State; His Majesty was not eager to displease his trusty right-hand man.

However, presented with the possibility that the Cardinal might have been, in fact, abusing the trust he had been afforded and making important decisions behind the King's back, Louis had no other choice but to confront Richelieu or otherwise be seen as weak and foolish.

"Do you forget yourself?" the King warned, trying to impress upon his young voice the gravitas needed for such an admonishment. "We are not in the least pleased by what We've been hearing about your machinations, Cardinal," Louis went on, raising a regal eyebrow. "You would do well to explain yourself. Is there any truth to Captain Treville's accusations?"

Exchanging a heated look with Rochefort, the Cardinal bowed low, his black cloak flaring like bat wings to his sides. "My apologies, Your Majesty. My mind was preoccupied with other important affairs," he said quickly, his tone changing from strict to condescending in the same breath. "And what accusations might those be?"

"Very disturbing ones, Richelieu, very disturbing indeed," Louis pronounced. "Tell me, how goes the questioning of the Musketeer? Has he confessed yet?"

The Cardinal looked surprised at the sudden change of topic. From the deep frown he was sporting, Treville was certain that the juxtaposition of such – apparently- unrelated subject matters was raising all sorts of warning bells within the astute man.

"I am told that a signed confession is nearly at hand," the Cardinal answered carefully, measuring his words to not give anything away. "My men tell me that this Musketeer might have been implicated in much more than just the death of one man. From what I hear, the murdered man was actually the Musketeer's accomplice in the garrison attack a few months past. More than an assassination, this was a tying up of loose ends."

Treville bit his lip, stopping himself from defending Aramis' honor, to avoid speaking of the tireless way the young man had labored to see that none of the injured went without treatment or comfort, of how he had driven himself to exhaustion in the wake of the attack. How dare the Cardinal actually voice such a suspicion, when Aramis had played such a vital part in saving so many of his fellow soldiers that day?

It was, however, a discussion for the King to conduct. Anything Treville said out of turn or any show of emotion was liable to aid the Cardinal, and that was positively the last thing that the Captain of the Musketeers wished.

"And yet, I have just read another confession that says otherwise," the monarch pointed out, sounding anything but pleased.

It had taken some convincing on Treville's part to persuade the King into making decisions this early in the day - despite the fact that the sun had risen many hours before - but the moment Louis' eyes landed on the words in front of him, his countenance had quickly changed from bored to decidedly not pleased.

"Sire?" the Cardinal enquired, the perfect image of innocence. The King was not pleased with that, either.

"Do not take Us for a fool, Cardinal. You know of what I speak! The signed confession of one of the men who dared to attack _My_ Musketeers inside their garrison," Louis snapped, his face turning red with anger. "A Red Guard! On your orders! Rochefort, your man, had it in his possession!"

The Cardinal's jaw clenched involuntarily. He was not a man accustomed to being shouted at, even if the one doing the shouting was the King himself. "May I see this paper you speak of?" he asked, his voice carefully submissive and respectful.

The King tossed the letter to the floor at his feet, a gesture of childish petulance that made the Cardinal's face turn dark with anger and humiliation. Having no other choice in the matter, the older man bent to pick up it up, the parchment slightly shaking as he held it. Treville fought hard to hide his amusement as the Cardinal read the fake confession.

"How peculiar that you would happen upon one of the few Red Guards who actually knows how to write," Richelieu commented, his eyes barely lifting from the paper to look at the Captain. "I was under the impression that most of them can barely sign their own names. Almost _all_ of them, I would dare say."

Treville faced his stare in silence. He knew that the Cardinal would not be fooled by the forged confession for long, and now that the First Minister finally understood the workings of the trap, Treville could, at last, pull the net from under his feet.

Of course the Cardinal had sent illiterate men to search for such important papers. He couldn't risk any of them stumbling upon a compromising sentence or reading anything by accident. Treville knew that much, the Cardinal knew that much, but what was more important, the King had no idea about the importance of that fact...unless the Captain or the Cardinal admitted to their respective lies.

"So, you do not deny that this man truly _was_ one of your Red Guards?" Louis asked, his eyes narrowing to slits.

The Cardinal actually smiled and Treville's blood started to run cold.

"Flattering as Your Majesty's trust in my memory seems to be, it is hardly conceivable to expect me to know the names of all five hundred of my Red Guards, Your Grace," he conceded with a bow, looking for all purposes like a man preparing himself to leave. "I shall have to look at the records to ascertain that, at once."

Treville stepped forward before the Cardinal could take a step away. They had come this far; he wouldn't allow the slippery man to escape so easily. "We can do so right now, if it pleases the King," he offered, pulling a roll of paper from his coat. "It just so happens that I have them right here," he announced, offering the scroll to the King. "As you can see, Jacques Bennoit, Etienne Cussac and Gerard Gillion had all been recent additions to the Red Guard ranks."

The look that the Cardinal sent his way could have melted ice in the midst of a snowstorm.

"Treville is right," the King declared, his eyes moving from the list back to the First Minister. "Were these men under your orders, Cardinal?" he asked very directly, his tone of voice promising the rolling of heads. "Did you ordered an attack on my Musketeers, destroying thousands of livres in weaponry and housing?"

Treville's breath caught, choosing to ignore the King's show of hand at what had _really_ bothered him in the attack. Not the lost lives, not the injured and disabled, but the lost _livres_. This, however, was the moment of truth, the deciding question where he would know whether the lives of his men would be avenged and given justice. Whether Aramis' sacrifice had been worth the result.

"Certainly you are not suggesting that _**I**_ should be held accountable for every deed of every man in my service. If the same was to be expected of Treville and Your Majesty's Musketeers, one would be left wandering what _their_ Captain had to gain from the murder of Gerard Gillion. After all, it was one of _his_ men who slit the man's throat."

"According to that signed confession, the only one who stood to gain anything at all was none other than you, Richelieu," Treville pointed out. "After all, why chance the man's loyalty and risk a loose tongue when a blade could just as easily assure his silence?"

The Cardinal's look of hurtful insult was perfectly believable, down right to the surprise and righteousness indignation in his voice. "Mind your words, Captain...you have no proof of what you speak of."

Treville's teeth found the inside of his cheek and pressed down, hard, until his mouth was filled with coppery flavor. The Cardinal had called his bluff, knowing perfectly well that, if such proof existed, the Captain would not have wasted so much time and effort in a fictitious confession.

"Tell me, Cardinal, what is exactly the nature of the business the Comte du Rochefort conducts for you?" Louis asked, his voice a dangerous mixture of curiosity and boredom.

The question did not disturb the Cardinal carefully-constructed facade in the slightest, like he had been waiting for such query all along. "None whatsoever. This man does not currently work for me, nor has he ever."

Rochefort, standing silently between two guards behind Treville, sputtered in surprise. The Captain looked at him just in time to see color blanching from the pale features, as he digested the magnitude of the Cardinal's treason. "Your Eminence..."

"Is that why this man is here?" Richelieu cut in before the Comte could utter anything else. "You truly thought that he was mine to command, whatever his charges are?"

Treville kept waiting for Rochefort to speak up, for him to call the Cardinal a liar and defend himself, but the Comte's lips were a thin white line across his pale face. "He is charged with treason, for impersonating a King's Musketeer without the King's consent," he informed the Cardinal, hoping that a reminder of his charges would stir Rochefort from his stupor.

No such luck.

"And why was he doing so?" Richelieu asked, sounding honestly intrigued.

"Given that he was in possession of a secret letter that had been left with someone of trust to be handed _only_ into the hands of a Musketeer," Treville explained, his eyes fixed on the Cardinal, "one can imagine he did it to procure something that was not his to take."

~§~

Musketeers were not children's dolls. Despite its complexity, there was not a single piece of a Musketeers' uniform that was without purpose, not one item whose intent was merely decoration, every single thing possessing its usefulness and function. They were elite soldiers, not ornaments.

Their hats, though some with more flair than others, protected them from the elements, kept their heads warm and their eyes shielded from the glare of the sun and the flare of their muskets' discharge.

Their shoulder pauldrons, more than identifying them as the King's personal regiment, served as protection against swords and daggers in combat. The measure of valor and experience of any Musketeer in the regiment was not counted in years, but in the number of creases in his pauldron, the number of marks he carried as testament of his service and skill.

Their cloaks, much like their hats, protected them from the elements, certainly, but they possessed one more utility that no Musketeer liked to dwell much upon. In a pinch, they could also serve as makeshift carrier for their wounded. For their dead.

Buttoning their two cloaks together had been easy enough for Athos and Porthos. Making sure that Aramis would not fall down -or throw himself off of - the cradle they had arranged, was much harder.

Their friend kept shifting from unconsciousness, lying still as a corpse, to a state of complete confusion in which he had no idea of where he was or who they were and tried his best to escape them. It was impossible to decide which was worse.

It made for very slow progress, as the two Musketeers fought to navigate the confusing twists and turns of the tunnels, carrying their injured friend between them. Instead of guiding them back to the apothecary's house, Charlotte told them that exiting through the Notre Dame's gardens would be closer from where they were, so that was the path they took. It was also the same path they had seen Rochefort use, which made their progress slow and filled with danger. The last thing they needed was to come face-to-face with the Comte, even if Athos' treacherous heart was begging Fate to send Rochefort his way. His sword was itching to taste that vile man's blood.

With his ankle screaming in pain and the added weight of Aramis, the distance seemed impossibly far and getting longer with each step he took. The thought of stopping, however, never crossed his mind. Behind him, on the other end of the load, he could hear the tired grunts that escaped Porthos' lips whenever the ceiling dipped lower, forcing the tall Musketeer to hunch over.

With his coat protecting Aramis from the cold, Athos had finally been able to catch a glimpse of the wound on Porthos' side. There was a trail of dark blood running from his waist to the edge of his breeches. In the dark, it was nearly impossible to determine if the wound was still bleeding or not, but Athos knew without a doubt that every time Porthos was forced to bend to fit the tunnel, his injured side was aggravated.

Stubborn as he was, and certainly still irked by the events at the bridge, Athos knew that it would be pointless to ask his companion if he wanted to stop and regain his strength. Neither of them could ignore the state Aramis was in and, even if it took the last of their reserves and they were forced to drag themselves out by the tips of their fingers, Athos was sure that neither of them would think twice about doing it, not if it meant getting Aramis away from that dreadful place. Their own wounds were mere nuisances in the face of what he had been through.

The narrowness, the dark and the stillness of the air inside the tunnels lent itself to silence and introspection. In a way, it reminded Athos of the confessional at the church where his family used to attend mass. Instead of confessing his many sins, however, Athos was filled with questions. Questions he dare not ask yet, for the timing was anything but right. He doubted that such a time would ever present itself.

Porthos' face had lost all trace of color when Aramis had spoken about that Marsac person, his warm brown eyes bright with unshed tears and his whole body trembling in reaction. As far as Athos was aware, Porthos did not know Marsac, even though his strong reaction spoke of recognition. And whatever he had recognized in that name, it had filled the tall Musketeer with sorrow.

Athos could not imagine why. Well...he could, but the enormity and dreadfulness of what he was imagining were such that Athos refused to acknowledge his vile imagination. He, too, had heard Aramis' words, speaking about death and dripping of shame for having survived something that he should not have survived. Remembering the way Aramis had been when they had first met, not that long ago, and everything Athos had witnessed since, it was impossible not to ponder the possibility that there was some sort of connection between this Marsac, Aramis and the massacre at Savoy.

It was a well-known fact around the garrison that there had been no survivors. An indisputable truth that no one had ever dared to question. And yet...

From what he heard tell, Athos knew that Aramis had been a completely different person before Savoy, more quick to smile, mischievous and impossible to keep still. Athos, like so many others, had believed that such changes had been brought about by grief and sorrow, for Aramis knew those who had died more closely than most of the new recruits that came after and no one could possibly stay the same after such a loss. But maybe there was more to it than grief...

Small details otherwise pushed aside or ignored started to make sense, started drawing together to form a painting. A bloody one.

Suddenly, it made sense why Treville would keep in the garrison a Musketeer who refused to _be_ a Musketeer. Helpful and masterful as Aramis was in the arts of healing, it was not a motive good enough to keep him around if he was of no use with a sword. Now, Athos could see that the Captain had been giving him time to recover, to return to his brothers and embrace his calling once again.

When Athos had first met Aramis, the man's hair had been short, too short for a proper gentleman, barely reaching his neck. Lice, Athos had imagined, not putting too much thought in the matter and figuring that to be a common enough problem when too many people lived together as happened in a garrison. At the time, it had felt like a reasonable enough motive to shave one's head. Now, he had to wonder if the shaved hair had not been related to some kind of injury that his friend had received in Savoy, for he dared not hope that Aramis had survived unscathed.

Other things, little things - like Aramis' aversion to muskets and firearms in general, despite having proved time and again what an excellent marksman he was – spoke to wounds deep inside his soul, that had nothing to do with a lack of courage or unwillingness to do his job as a Musketeer; it spoke of pain and powerlessness in the face of ghostly musket-balls that Aramis seemed unable to neither dodge nor forget.

If he were to believe Aramis' feverish words in the tunnels, however, the motives for his despair were much grimmer than mourning the loss of his brothers-in-arms. It spoke of guilt and shame, of sorrow not only for the lost lives, but for the ones who remained alive.

Athos was more than grateful for having taken position at the front of their little procession, following Charlotte's quiet steps and wavering light, for that made it impossible for Porthos to see the angst and sadness that took hold of his expression as he let himself admit the possibility that Aramis carried such a heavy burden in silence.

The irony of the matter was not lost on the former Comte, not when he carried an equally dark past within himself. But while Aramis' burden came from a place of unmerited guilt - for Athos could not contemplate for a single second that his friend's survival had been a result of dishonorable actions – his own guilt had been more than earned, as he had failed both his brother and the only woman he had ever loved.

When the feeble light of a new day greeted them at the end of the long tunnel they had been traveling, Athos' thoughts had turned too dark for him to be able to even tell the difference, his feet following blindly until he almost collided with Charlotte when she stopped.

Notre Dame was devoid of people that early in the morning. The sun seemed reluctant to do its job and whatever fragile light there was to guide them, showed nothing more than empty streets and a sickly, white fog that clung to the wet cobblestones in a desperate attempt to prolong nighttime. It suited their purposes.

They couldn't take Aramis to the garrison; that much was clear in Athos' mind. He would not be safe there, and the rest of the regiment would find it suspicious if the escaped Musketeer was returned to the sickroom rather than the brig.

The situation, while not related, only served to convince the former Comte that his growing desire to find lodgings outside of the garrison was a wise decision. Unfortunately, it was one that he had yet to take and now both he and Porthos found themselves with no place to take their sick and delirious friend.

There was, of course, the possibility of paying for a room at a tavern, but Athos could not think of a single one nearby that could assure them of the anonymity that they so desperately needed, or was even clean enough to tend to the wounds covering his friend's body.

"Wha' about those people we left t'Captain's letter with?" Porthos suggested, his words coming in breathless pants.

His face was beaded with sweat, the skin pale and tinged with grey. Neither of them was in any condition to wander aimlessly through the streets of the capital.

The sun was starting to peek over the rooftops. Their need to find a place to hide was swiftly moving from urgent to desperate. "The Bonacieux house?" Athos inquired with a frown. It had been hard enough to convince the cloth merchant to hold onto a letter in exchange for a purse filled with coin...asking him to open the doors of his house to a wanted criminal would be like hoping for the sun to rise in the west. "Should we risk it?"

"Don't seem like we have much choice," Porthos shrugged as best as he could. Aramis was all but a dead weight between them.

Athos pondered their rapidly deteriorating situation. Treville had already placed a tremendous load of responsibility on the Bonacieux, even if they were unaware of such. What if they placed the whole plan at risk by showing at their doorstep a second time? What if the Cardinal's men found them there? What of Aramis' fate then? "We need to know their door will be open for us before we take Aramis there," Athos surmised. Despite what he knew he needed to do, he was reluctant to take action. "I'll go ahead and try to talk them into-"

"I can go," Charlotte offered, a shy smile on her face. In the growing light of the day, it was becoming harder and harder to pretend that she anything other than a child. "She won't know who I am, but neither will this Cardinal ya talk about."

"Charlotte..." Athos started, licking his lips as he searched for the right words. She **was** a child and he'd rather not risk her life any further than he had done. "You've done enough already...more than enough," he corrected, aware that they would've never found Aramis if it hadn't been for her. "You do not have to-"

"Before Bourdon," Charlotte cut in, stopping his words with a look that was far too old for her years. "Before... _Maman_... _Maman_ used to tell me these stories, church stories, 'bout people helping each other and being good. I don't remember'em all," she went on, her eyes turning watery as if the fading memories hurt all the more for their blurriness, "but I remember t'one 'bout the traveling man who got beaten and robbed on the road. And how only one person was good enough t'help'im."

Athos nodded, realizing where her thoughts were leading. How could he deny this young girl, who life had turned into a thief, her chance to be a good Samaritan? "We will follow you, at a safe distance," he simply said, his hand resting gently on her bony shoulder. "Do not knock on their door if you see anyone outside, especially men who look like soldiers, yes?"

Charlotte nodded, a bright smile contrasting with the tears in her eyes.

"And if a woman comes to the door, give her this," Athos said, his fingers fumbling with the straps holding his paldron to his shoulder, "and tell her that, once more, the Musketeers are in dire need of her service."

~§~

Constance led a boring life. There was no soft way to put it, there were no gentler words to describe it.

Jacques, bless his soul, was a good man, but his spirit of adventure went no further than risking to buy a length of striped cloth when all the other merchants were betting on flowery patterns. And that alone was enough to make him sweat and turn his stomach into knots.

When he was at home, he spent most of his time talking about the other merchants and the corners they cut to fetch better prices and customers. Constance could never quite decide if he disapproved of their actions or if, deep down, he envied their shrewdness for making more money than he ever could.

It wasn't like they lived poorly, quite the contrary. The house had belonged to Constance' parents and it was more than big enough for the two of them. Lord! It would even be big enough for a horde of children, should they ever be blessed by those, but it certainly wasn't a palace. And it wasn't in some fancy part of Paris, like some of the other merchants that Bonacieux traded with. After all, Butcher Street wasn't all that far their house and, on the days when the wind struck just the right way, the smell was just vile.

But it was a nice house, a roof over their heads, and Jacques had even been talking about finding a maid to help her, like a proper lady should have. Only, the last thing Constance had ever wanted in her life was to be a proper lady.

Proper ladies had lives even more boring than hers, if such a thing was possible.

Constance was folding the newest batch of fine cloth that her husband had bought the previous day, when she heard the knocking on her door. Her heart jumped into her mouth and she dropped the roll of linen with a soft curse that went unheard in the otherwise empty house.

Served her right, to go on and on, complaining about her boring life. First thing in the morning there had been that nasty fellow knocking on her front door and now...what if he'd decided to come back and get some answers out of her? It wasn't like she knew _exactly_ what was going on to tell him anything, but she wouldn't say a word about Treville and the two Musketeers who had come to her house a few days before, she vowed as much to herself. And she most certainly wouldn't say a word about her suspicions that this was all part of some plan that the Captain had arranged to capture the man who, for all she knew, was now knocking at her door!

"Coming!" she shouted from the steps, hoping that whoever was on the other side hadn't been able to hear the quiver in her voice as clearly as she had. Why had she refused the two Musketeers that Treville had offered to guard the house? Jacques wasn't even home...

Peeking through the window showed her nothing other than an empty courtyard outside. And yet, the knocking resumed.

Constance looked around, grabbing the nearest thing she could use as a weapon. The candlesticks were new, a wedding gift from one of Jacques' cousins, but she'd never liked them much. They were ugly, but heavy.

Holding her improvised weapon behind her back, Constance carefully opened the door. She was forced to adjust her line of sight as she realized that it was not an adult knocking so insistently, but a young girl. "Oh! You're not..." she let out, suddenly feeling silly for the way her heart was racing. "What can I do for you, sweetie?"

Constance had never seen the girl before, but it was easy to see where she was from, just by her clothes. It broke her heart that she could do nothing for the children living in the Court of Miracles, and the fact that this one had tear tracks down her dirty cheeks only made her heart ache worse.

"The Musketeers need you," the girl whispered, pulling something from behind her back, hidden by her long cloak. "He's hurt."

That...was not what Constance had expected. At all. "What do you mea-"

The embroidered leather piece that the girl handed her was impossible to mistake for anything else but part of a Musketeers' uniform. And, unlike the stolen cloak that the other man had been wearing to get the letter from her, this one she could believe to have been given willingly. The buckles were intact, there was no dirt or blood smearing it. In fact, it still smelled of new leather.

She didn't know many Musketeers, but one thing she knew for certain. No Musketeer parted with his paldron unless he had a very good reason. "Lead the way, young lady," Constance whispered back, closing the door behind her.

Still, she took the candlestick with her.

Just in case.

~§~

"And why was this confession not brought to the King the minute it was obtained?" Richelieu countered, not missing a beat. "Seems hardly honest to keep something as important as _this_ hidden from His Grace's knowledge."

Louis' attention perked up at that. Unfortunately, his brown eyes were now fixed on the Captain rather than on the First Minister. "Good question, Cardinal. Why indeed, Treville?"

Treville forced his jaw to unclench. The King had asked him a question and he would do well to answer it, even if all he wished to do at the moment was to put his fist through the Cardinal's smug face.

A thought came to his mind and Treville steeled himself, casting a different kind of net. If Rochefort wouldn't turn on the Cardinal, for fear what might happen to him, maybe Treville could pressure the Cardinal to turn on his man and force the Comte into acting to save his own life. "I did not wish to bother Your Highness with theories and thoughtful constructions," he said carefully. To steer the King's anger in his direction, at this point, would be a sure defeat. "The confession was kept secret in the hopes that it would attract the rest of Gerard's accomplices, possibly even the person who gave him his orders," he said, a pointed look in Richelieu's direction making it obvious who Treville believed that person to be. "One can only assume that the man responsible for his death was the same one who paid him to act as he did."

The Cardinal looked at the letter in his hands one more time, a careful smile creeping over his thin lips. "Then, perhaps it is not I who stood to gain from this Gerard's death, but the one you caught stealing the confession," he said, voicing the exact words Treville had hoped he would.

Check-mate. Discreetly casting his eyes in the Comte's direction, the Captian held his breath, waiting for the man to speak. One word from him, and the Cardinal's involvement in the whole sordid affair would be unmasked. Surely such a blatant accusation would be more than enough for Rochefort's self-preservation to stir and loosen his tongue?

"Are you suggesting that Rochefort was the one behind all of this, that he was not following the Cardinal's orders but his own wishes?" Louis asked. From his words, it seemed like he had been as much convinced of the Cardinal's claim that the Comte was not his agent as Treville. Which was nothing. "What say you, Rochefort?"

The Cardinal cut in before the Comte could open his mouth, once again, preventing the man from speaking freely. "As I have said, I do not know this man, but I do know _of_ him, as do you, Treville," Richelieu voiced. His stern look in the Comte's direction had the effect of closing the man's mouth without a single sound coming out. "It is no secret that he tried to buy his way into the Musketeers' ranks some time ago, a request that was summarily refused after a single conversation with their Captain. I am sure that the thought that this might be nothing more than petty revenge has already entered your mind..."

Treville resisted the urge to grab his hat and bite on the thick wool. Of all the plausible excuses that the Cardinal could've come up with, that was certainly the most...truthful.

He remembered well the Comte's attempt to join the Musketeers, right after the regiment had been formed. He had arrived at Treville's office with a purse filled with coins and a head filled with illusions that his nobility entitled him to a position of superiority over the rest of the soldiers in the regiment. The man had no experience in the arts of war and, even though Treville was sure his education was as good as any other nobleman's, he had shown a lack of interest and concern for the lives of others that had left the Captain with absolutely no doubt that Rochefort would never be a Musketeer.

As far as he knew, the Comte had started working for Richelieu soon after that.

"Maybe we should let Rochefort himself explain his reasons," the Cardinal prompted, brazenly.

The Comte's pale eyes darted furiously in between the Cardinal and the King, who was starting to look impatient as he waited for his answer. "Your Majesty, I...I..." he whispered, stumbling through the words. "The Cardinal is right," he finally said, looking straight ahead with an air of defiance. "I orchestrated the attack on the garrison because they thought themselves too good for me, preferring low life commoners than someone of proper birth. The Red Guards were easy enough to convince, as they shared my lack of love for the Musketeers."

Treville could not hold back his surprise. Was the man's loyalty such that he would condemn himself to avoid involving the Cardinal?

"And the murdered man, Gerard?" the Cardinal pressed, reciting the words like he and the Comte were in a theater play of their own making.

Rochefort closed his eyes, defeat descending over him like a mantle of darkness. "I killed him in his prison cell, prevented him from pointing a finger at me."

It would be futile to point out that Gerard had been in prison for months before Rochefort decided to kill him, and that the only reason he had done so eventually, was because the timing had been right and Richelieu had seen his opportunity for a scapegoat when Aramis had suffered his unfortunate mishap at the King's hunt.

Treville kept his mouth shut, even though he could see clearly through the veil of lies and altered truths. Rochefort could simply claim that the chance had presented itself, and he had taken it and the Captain had nothing but logic and common sense on his side. In the face of the King's justice, those were not enough. "Why Aramis, why the extra effort to make him look guilty in your stead?" Treville couldn't help asking.

The vicious glint that came into the Comte's eyes made the Captain fear for the life of his soldier. "Found him drowned in wine at the tavern, his wits long-gone," Rochefort said, his words laced with malice. "It was quite easy to lead him down to the cellar and lay him next to a dead man."

Treville couldn't control his anger any longer. "I will see you hanged for this, Rochefort!" he spat, his hand unconsciously gripping the hilt of his sword.

"There you have it!" The Cardinal interrupted the building tension with a clap of his hands, his fingers remaining clasped as if in prayer. "A spoken confession, certainly more honest and trustworthy than a piece of paper that we know nothing about or under what circumstances it was obtained. What do you wish us to do with the _Comte_ , Your Majesty?"

The Captain resisted the urge to grind his teeth at the subtle emphasis that the Cardinal had managed to give to Rochefort's noble title. He need not be a fortune teller to guess how this would end.

Justice was justice, as long as no nobleman was ever put to death for crimes committed against someone beneath his station. Gerard was a commoner and as such, his death was only as important as the amount of dirt it took to bury him.

Louis squirmed in his seat, looking between the stormy expression on Treville's face and the openness and warmth in the Cardinal's expression. "What do you suggest, Cardinal?"

Richelieu smiled, walking towards the monarch, perfectly aware that his position, threatened as it had been merely minutes before, was now safer than ever. "I have a few ideas, Your Majesty," he whispered with a bow. "Perhaps we should address the matter in private?"

"Your Majesty," Treville voiced before the King could further escape his grasp. "My man is innocent. I wish to secure his immediate release from the Cardinal's hold, if it pleases You," he asked, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. Now, however, was not the time for wounded pride; Aramis' life was worth much more than a few groveling words.

The King nodded, even if his expression was the same as when asked if dinner should be pheasant or trout. "I suppose," he said. "See to it, Armand."

"It will be taken care of, Your Highness," the Cardinal assured, a vicious smile creeping over his lips. "It will most certainly be taken care of."

Treville's blood froze inside his veins. It had not sounded like a promise of freedom at all and, if he knew the Cardinal's dislike for loose ends as well as he believed, it sounded more like a promise of something else entirely.


	14. Chapter 13

~§~

The dingy, smelly street was shrouded in shadows, like the narrow space trapped in between the houses tall enough to hide the light of the sun -even when it shone brighter than it did this winter's day- had been nothing but a careless afterthought instead of a necessary path for folks to walk through.

Constance's steps faltered and she had nearly made up her mind to turn around and head home. "Are you sure this is the right place?" she asked, her voice but a whisper. Two steps ahead, her young guide was merely a dark shape against the mist that turned everything grey and lifeless.

"They're here, couple of steps ahead, I swear," the girl assured her.

Constance moved forward, taking comfort in the fact that she and her husband had not nearly riches enough to justify such an elaborate ruse to be robbed. Still, her legs shook as she walked and her grip around the candle holder grew tighter, fairly certain that her foolishness was leading her straight into becoming a corpse, floating in the Seine by the next morning.

When she finally manage to lay eyes on anyone remotely resembling a Musketeer, they were standing less than two steps away, three men huddled against each other.

For a moment, it was hard to tell which was the hurt one that the young girl had told her about. The two that Constance could recognize, Athos and Porthos, looked like they had been dragged over the cobblestones on a rainy, muddy day and even from a distance, she could see the greyness that tinted Porthos' skin and the way Athos' face was lined with pain.

There was a third man, head resting on Porthos' shoulder and propped upright between the other two, all three of them sitting on the front steps of Madame Poulain's bakery, closed ever since her husband had fallen sick with a fever. From where she stood, it was nearly impossible to see the injured person properly, but she could only assume that it was someone in trouble with either the Red Guards or the rest of the Musketeers. After all, what other reason could they have to come to her instead of a certified physician? "What's this then?" she asked, trying to instill as much calmness and reassurance in her words as she possibly could. They looked lost enough without her rebuking them like misbehaved children.

"I hate to bother you in such a manner, Madame," Athos whispered, trying to get to his feet. One of his legs seemed less inclined to oblige and he ended up nearly falling into Constance's arms as she instinctively stepped closer. "We find ourselves in desperate need of sanctuary," he added, his blue eyes earnest and sincere as he accepted her arm. "A place to render some aid to our injured brother."

Constance resisted the urge to roll her eyes in a very unlady-like fashion. "Just for your friend, yes, I can see that," she pointed out, her words filled with compassion despite the sarcastic tone.

Jacques would not be pleased if it reached his ears that his wife was opening the doors of their house to three men he had no familiarity with, but, fortunately for Jacques, he was away on business and would not be returning for the next four days.

Constance trusted Captain Treville and she knew Athos to be a kind and honorable man who had come to her aid before; it was impossible for her to think that someone chosen by the Captain to be a part of the Musketeers -like Porthos- or any man who Athos called 'brother' with no hesitation -like the senseless stranger- could be anything else but good, honorable and decent as well.

Besides, it would be very un-Christian to deny them assistance, she was absolutely certain of that. "Follow me," she voiced, decision made.

The sound of heavy and numerous footsteps echoed in the nearly-empty street and Constance turned in that direction, curious as to what it might be. Not many around here had the kind of coin that was necessary to buy leather footwear, and what she was hearing was most definitely the stomping of solid boots on the ground.

A troop of Red Guards emerged from the white brume at the end of the street, the otherwise vivid shade of their cloaks drained of color by the elements. They moved with purpose, marching at a fast pace past her, barely glancing in her direction. Their eyes, sharp and attentive, searched every hidden nook and cranny, their gloved hands on the pommels of their weapons, ready to strike. She shivered, praising the Lord above that it wasn't her they were looking for.

When the guards were nothing more than ghostly shapes on a foggy background, Constance turned around, set to hurry the Musketeers along; the temperature was dropping once more and she was too poorly-dressed to be caught outside in the snow. She found herself alone.

The three grown men and little girl who had been there just a second before had, apparently, managed to vanish into thin air in the amount of time she had been distracted by the passing guards.

Her initial impression that they had sought her out because they were in trouble with the Red Guards became more than a suspicion. "You're the ones they're looking for," she said, certain of her words and that, even though she could not see them, they were nearby. "It's safe now, they're gone."

Athos limped out from the shadows, eyes darting around to confirm her words. It was less a gesture of mistrust and more of a soldier's ingrained habit, which was the only reason why the action did not offend Constance. "We have done nothing wrong, I assure you, Madame," he said, his head bowed in either deference or regret.

Constance believed him. Besides, she'd had a healthy dislike for the Red Guard ever since its creation. "Well, let's not stand around waiting for them to come back, shall we?"

~§~

The troop of Red Guards were going in Notre Dame's direction, Athos was certain of that. The implications of why they could possibly be in such haste to get there, or why there were so many of them walking together, he could only guess. And what he could guess brought shivers to his skin.

Whatever was happening, it seemed like the Cardinal was using his regiment to clean up Rochefort's mess. To make everything disappear. To make Aramis _disappear_.

It had been only by the oddest of lucks that they had succeeded in thwarting the Cardinal's plans for their friend. Had they missed the sound of Aramis' chains dragging the floor, or the sound of his moans, the injured Musketeer would still be wandering alone, lost in the tunnels underneath Paris. Easy prey for the Red Guards.

A single moment in time, a mere distraction or even a more silent and less-confused Aramis, and everything would've been lost. Even now, in the street where they waited for Constance, had the mist not worked in their favor, they would've been doomed, for the alcove where they had hastily ducked had not been much of a refuge, but more of a game of shadows that disguised their presence.

Athos had to smile. Despite all the trouble that seemed to find him, Aramis seemed to have an uncanny amount of luck on his side. Down in those tunnels, in that street...even at Savoy.

It was for that reason, and that alone, that Athos vowed not to despair as they settled Aramis on the Bonacieux's dinner table, close to the fireplace, and removed Porthos' doublet, to better assess the damage. Because grim as the sight was, Aramis had his luck to keep him alive. Hopefully.

Constance let out a gasp, hands flying to her mouth a second too late as she tried to stop any sound from escaping.

Athos cringed at her reaction, blaming himself for his poor discernment in exposing an innocent woman to such raw evidence of a level of violence that even they, as trained soldiers, had no small amount of difficulty to stomach. "I apologize, Madame," he stammered while his hands stayed busy, gently prying Porthos' doublet from the wounds covering Aramis' skin. His hands, he noticed, were shaking. "This is not a sight I'd wish to impose on any lady...if you trust us with your home for the time being, no one will think less of you if you choose to step outside and avoid such a display."

Constance's hand, when she placed it on top of his, was steadier than anything he could have managed at the moment. Athos looked up, facing her pale, yet determined face. Her gasp, he could recognize now, had been inflamed by compassion rather than fright. "Tell me what you need," she offered, not a trace of hesitation in her voice.

It was hardly a difficult question, or even an unexpected one, but Athos found himself lost for words. His mouth opened and the only thing that managed to get out was a sob. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion at his own reaction.

It was certainly troublesome to gaze upon the damage inflicted upon Aramis during the time he had been at Rochefort's mercy, but now that he was free from that torment and back in the care of his friends, Athos should be feeling his burden lessening, the knotted rope around his chest finally unclenching, allowing him to breath. Instead, he could feel his breath coming faster and faster, his brow peppered with heavy beads of sweat, his fingers senseless and feeling like ice.

Dragging his gaze away from the wounds on Aramis' torso, Athos focused instead on his friend's face, hoping that was what he needed to calm his hammering heart.

Maybe it was merely a trick of the light, or the blood crusted in Aramis' neatly-trimmed beard, or maybe it was his mind torturing him and reminding Athos that memories and guilt would never fade away...for one second, Aramis' face was not his own, familiar features replaced by another's, unblemished skin replaced by freckles, brown curls taking on a reddish hue. "Thomas..."

~§~

His attention fully focused on the injured friend lying unconscious on top of a dinner table, Porthos barely had time to react as he felt, more than saw, Athos' legs buckling underneath him. "Oye, mate!" he let out, rushing to grab the older man before he fell gracelessly to the floor. The wound in his side protested vehemently against the added weight and the way he had twisted, sending both of them to the floor by Constance's fireplace. "Shit! Athos?"

The pallor that had overtaken Athos' features was alarming in itself. Porthos had seen dead men with more color in their cheeks than his friend had at that moment. The only difference, it seemed, was that dead men did not sweat or shake as Athos was currently doing in such an alarming manner. "Athos?"

Constance's face loomed over the both of them, looking one step away from running from her own house in search of aid. As it was, Porthos couldn't really blame her, considering that there were three wounded Musketeers in her home, two of them currently unresponsive and doing their best to pass as corpses.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked, kneeling by their side. "Maybe it'd be best to fetch a physician..."

"I'm alright," Athos whispered, his voice raspy and leaden. "I'm...I need to get up," he said stubbornly, one hand reaching up to the fireplace mantle to pull himself up.

Porthos watched as his friend struggled to his feet, swaying for a bit until he regained his balance, before turning his attention to his own battered body and getting off the floor, a task easier said than done.

While he respectfully would not make any comments about what had just happened, Porthos knew that Athos' actions were not merely due to his injured leg or the grief of seeing the poor condition their friend was in. It was not the first time he had heard the name Thomas coming from Athos' lips in a moment of distress and pain and he was sure it would not be the last. Whoever Thomas was, or had been, the name carried with it the same remorse and sorrow that Marsac's name dragged from Aramis' mouth.

The need to help both of his friends tore at Porthos' heart, pulling into two different directions with equal strength. Aramis, however, had injuries that had to be dealt with, burns and cuts that were still bleeding and needed to be cleaned, unless they wanted his fever to run any higher than what it already was. Athos' heartache would have to wait, but it would not be forgotten, that much Porthos vowed to himself.

"Madame, 'bout that help ya mentioned," he stated, taking a deep breath and forcing a polite smile onto his face. "Som' boiled water and as many clean linens as ya can spare would be much appreciated," he asked, still keeping an eye on Athos. The older man was still grasping the mantle like it was the only thing keeping him off the floor. "Do ya still have tha' bag we brought from tha' nasty lil' man?"

Athos blinked, his eyes looking more and more focused at each movement. The bag that they had stocked at the apothecary had been left abandoned on one of the chairs as they had both heaved Aramis onto the table. "I'll sort through what we need," Athos offered, the gentle nod letting Porthos know that his head was back on his shoulders and he wished to help.

Taking advantage of the fact that Constance had left the room to get some water boiling, Porthos went about ridding Aramis of the filthy rags still attached to his body before covering the lower half with one of their cloaks, his hands barely hesitating as he threw the foul-smelling breeches into the burning flames. They had been ruined either way, and in between him and Athos, Porthos was sure they could purchase some news ones for Aramis.

Planning for new clothes was the easy part, his treacherous mind reminded him. For a moment, looking down at the map of pain that his friend's body had become, the tall Musketeer was at a loss for where to start; for one frightening moment, it seemed like an insurmountable task to piece Aramis back together.

His eyes focused on the dark bruises around Aramis' neck, finger-shaped marks that his beard was too short to hide. Bile rose to Porthos' mouth as he realized that, at some point, Rochefort's hands had been around his friend's throat, stealing his breath, close enough to end Aramis life. Porthos' hands curled into fists, his blood singing for revenge, for a chance to repay the favor and squeeze the life out of that vile man. Soon, he promised himself, very soon.

Athos, bless his soul, saw the look on his face and rested a hand on Porthos' arm, a gentle grasp before moving to the end of the table. On a chair between the two of them were the ointments and herbs that they had bought from the apothecary. "I'll see to the cuts on his feet," he offered. "You start on his chest and arm and we'll work our way towards each other."

The words, while practical and far from being untrue, still sounded harsh and violent when spoken aloud, bringing to reality the fact that Aramis' body was such a canvas of ill-treatment and injury that two of them would have to 'work their way towards each other' to cover all that there was to be done. Taking a deep breath that smelled of blood and burned wood, Porthos started his work.

~§~

Aramis woke with a gasp, breath caught in his throat, an imaginary cork that still prevented any air from reaching his lungs. He coughed and sputtered, panic rising inside his chest, the feeling of hands around his throat adding to the effect that he could not take a breath. His eyes were open, but all he could see were blurred colors, likes shimmering ghosts of things that were meant to be solid but lacked consistency.

"Easy, now." A gentle voice, a woman's voice, filled his senses. "Air's not running out any time soon. No need to go about trying to gulp it all down in one go, is there?"

There was a hand pressing down on his chest and it took Aramis more than a moment to realize that the slender fingers were trying to stop him from getting up. The touch remained gentle, putting the slightest pressure against his skin and he allowed himself to sink back into the soft mattress and the smell of clean linens. "Who—where am I?" He could barely recognize his voice, hoarse and faint as it was.

The Musketeer willed his eyes into focus, blinking until the heated haze that seemed intended on consuming his eyeballs receded just enough for him to glimpse the shape of the woman sitting by his bedside. Both the woman and the bed were complete strangers to him. Auburn hair, loosely curled, framed a face where a forced smile beamed down at him. "Aramis, yes?" she politely asked, waiting for his confirming nod. "I am Madame Bonacieux- Constance. You're at my home. You are safe here," she told him, the words sounding almost true. "Athos and Porthos will be back in a little bit, don't you worry. Would you like some water?" she asked even as a glass was pressed against his lips, her warm hand supporting the back of his neck and raising his head slightly.

The cold water tasted like sweet ambrosia, washing over his dry mouth and opening a fresh and wet path all the way down to his empty stomach. It was distracting enough that the woman's words only registered after Aramis had drained the glass dry. The fact that she was asking him not to worry was enough to send his heart racing, more than it had been before. "What's wrong? Where a—are they?" he asked, pushing against the mattress to get himself up. The second he moved, Aramis realized two things in quick succession: his right hand was tightly strapped to his chest and his whole body exploded in pain as soon as he tried to twist onto his side. Aramis fell back down with a gasp, curling into himself.

"That was a very stupid thing to do," the woman, Constance, chided him, her voice managing to convey both her concern for his well-being and how much of a fool she thought him to be. "Here, let me see how much more damage you've managed to do to yourself."

He had forgotten about his broken arm, about his mangled finger, about everything that had happened. Despite the unfamiliarity of the place, there was a sense of security and welcoming domesticity to the house that made him think of his parents' home and his childhood.

The pain, however, had completely shattered that illusion, bringing everything back in harsh, bright colors. Well, almost everything...there was a large blank piece in between being held down by chains and lying in a stranger's bed.

The last thing Aramis could remember was the Cardinal's man walking away, on his way to pick Treville's letter and -hopefully- fall into their trap. He'd been chained to those columns, and now he was in this woman's house and somehow Athos and Porthos knew where he was and would, apparently, be returning soon and all that Aramis knew for a certainty was that they weren't safe until the Cardinal and his man were both dealt with. "Where are they?" he asked more vehemently, pulling his hand away from the woman's careful inspection. His limb was wrapped in linen from the elbow to the tip of his fingers, the cloth around his thumb stained red. Hidden underneath, he could feel the stitches, itching already "What are you not telling me?"

It was easy to guess the turmoil inside Constance's mind. On the one hand, she seemed honestly intent on keeping him safe, on the other, she seemed to be equally worried about the other two Musketeers. Despite what proper manners dictated, Aramis reached out with his good hand to grab the woman's fingers where they were twirling around each other in her lap. "Please, tell me."

Constance looked up, startled by the feeling of too-warm fingers wrapping around her cold ones. "They made me promise that you would be kept safe," she said, biting her lower lip. It wasn't a coy gesture or even one of indecision. Her mind was already made up, even if she wasn't happy with her decision. "The Red Guards have been knocking on every door from Notre Dame to here," she finally said. "Athos seemed certain that they were looking for you," she confessed. "He sent Charlotte to alert Treville of what was happening, then both he and Porthos left to find a safer place. They made me promise that I wouldn't allow you to do something stupid while they were away," she finished, looking pointedly at him, like ' _something stupid_ ' was exactly what she imagined he would be doing.

She wasn't wrong. Aramis' mind raced with a million thoughts. If the Red Guards were in fact looking for him like Athos believed, that meant that the Cardinal had decided that the Musketeer was no longer of any use, which was bad. It also meant that the man that had spent the past days tormenting him, the blond man with the cruel, pale eyes, was no longer free to return to the tunnels and finish the job himself, which meant that Treville had managed to stop him, one way or another. Which was good. "Charlotte?" Aramis asked, confused by the unfamiliar name.

"The girl who was with you when I brought you to my house," Constance explained, the look on her face making Aramis wonder just how many times he'd already asked that same question. "I told Athos that it was no job to send a child to do, warning the Captain like that, but it was either that or leave her to watch over you, and she seemed to be under the impression that you didn't like her."

Aramis smiled despite himself and the situation. His mind was still confused and sluggish, but he remembered the young girl who he'd thought to be a ghost until she had stolen his coin purse. By some twist of fate, she seemed to be aiding Athos and Porthos in their quest to save him. How his friends had become involved in his secret mission, Aramis had no idea. "How long has it been since they left?"

Constance rose from her chair, busying herself with straightening the bed clothes around him and fluffing a pillow that needed no more fluffing. She was nervous, stalling an answer that both knew nobody was going to like. "Over two hours," she finally said, looking out the window, "maybe more...Oh, God!" she let out, one hand flying to cover her mouth.

"What is it? What do you see?" Aramis demanded, struggling once again to get out of the bed. Now that he was aware of what his body felt like, it was somewhat easier to handle the pain. Barely.

His legs felt like he had ridden his horse for two whole days without rest and with only one -barely- usable arm, the simple enterprise of sitting up became nothing short of an Herculean task. Aramis could feel sweat breaking out all over his skin, the salty liquid stinging as it rolled over the few wounds not covered by bandages. He felt chilled and on fire at once, shivers running like waves over his skin. There was no way to stop the groan that escaped his lips as Aramis tried to take one step on his bandaged feet and faltered, landing on one knee.

Constance's attention finally veered from whatever was happening outside her window and she raced to his side. "What in damnation do you think you're doing?" she asked, her tone of voice one that Aramis hadn't heard coming any woman since his mother had caught him stealing honey from the jars in the pantry when he was five. "You think yourself in a fit state to run down there and save them from the Red Guards?"

Aramis' heart froze inside his chest before shooting off against his ribs like a musket ball. "W-what?" he stammered, pushing against Constance's supporting arm until they were closer to the window.

She was right. There were at least twenty Red Guards gathered in the square below her house. Their attention, as far as Aramis could tell, was not on the house or even his presence inside, for they were all facing away, looking in the direction of the well. Hidden behind the precarious cover of some crates and a vender's cart, Aramis could glimpse two familiar heads, one covered in light brown hair and the other with a dark cloth.

"They're trapped," Aramis whispered, sagging against the side of the window, what little strength he had left abandoning him. "It's impossible for the two of them to defeat that many Red Guards...they will perish...because of me."

"Charlotte left at the same time as they did," Constance reminded him, nervously peering outside. She could see as well as he did that the Cardinal's men were getting ready to attack. Athos and Porthos didn't have much time. "I'm sure help will be arriving any second now."

Aramis shook his head, remembering that none of the other Musketeers knew of their plans. To them, he was nothing but a disgrace to the regiment and a murderer. The garrison was less than ten minutes away; if help was to come at all, it would have arrived already. "No one is coming," he offered with a defeated sigh. "The girl probably didn't even get inside the garrison," he added, remembering her aversion to Musketeers and anyone in a uniform in general.

Athos and Porthos had put themselves at risk because of him, because of Aramis' decisions and his failure to escape by himself from those tunnels. He would not idly stand by while his two best friends - while his _brothers_ – died. Not again.

"What do you think you are doing?" Constance asked as soon as Aramis pushed away from the window and took a feeble step towards the door.

He could see a flight of stairs just to the left, steps that he was sure would lead him outside. If the Red Guards were there for him, then he would give them what they wanted and avoid the entire confrontation. "I need to get down there," he stated, taking another step. "They're here for me; there's no need for anyone else to get hurt."

Aramis found himself envious of the ease in Constance's movements, as she effortlessly pushed past him to bar his way. He couldn't remember a time when he could move as effortlessly and gracefully as she, when it did not hurt to stand, to walk, to breathe...

"Take one more step and I will slap you right back into that bed, you can mark my words, _Monsieur_!" she threatened, hands on her hips, elbows out in a stance that was meant to make her look twice her size, even if it failed at its purpose. "You can barely walk, you still have a fever and I would gamble my grandmother's fake silver necklace that it wouldn't take more than a puff of wind to bring you to your knees right now," she pointed out, fuming. "How will your death help your friends, care to explain it to me?"

Aramis' eyes turned cold with anger. While her words stung with the bitterness of truth, she didn't _know_ , she couldn't understand that doing nothing would be the death of him just the same. This way, at least, there was a chance that Athos and Porthos might live. "You suggest that I stand by and watch them die instead?" he asked, venom lending strength to his words. "Do you believe me to be completely without honor?"

Constance paused, her posture deflating. "No...no, I'm suggesting no such thing. But surely there is something else to be done, other than throwing your life away?"

Aramis closed his eyes, feverish tears pooling under his lids like acid. She was right. Even if he went down there and placed himself at the mercy of the Red Guards, there was no guarantee that they wouldn't kill Porthos and Athos all the same, just because they had defied them. And then all of their lives would be wasted, for nothing. And what of Constance, what would happen to her if the Cardinal discovered her involvement in the whole confusion? What would become of her life?

When he forced his lids open once more, his gaze landed on a brace of pistols and the pouch of gunpowder and balls resting on top of a wooden chest in front of the bed.

"Porthos left those behind," Constance informed him, her tremulous voice weighted down by the heaviness of what she refused to say. That the weapons were there in case Porthos and Athos never came back, in the event that the next boots up those stairs belonged to Red Guards instead of Musketeers. In case everything was lost. "In case...just in case."

Aramis smiled. He had to remember to thank Porthos properly for his thoughtfulness later. "We must find a distraction," he whispered, looking around for something that they could use. He would be able to take only two shots at a time, using both pistols, but in the time it would take him to reload, the Red Guards could easily invade Constance's house and murder the both of them before a third shot could be fired. And that too would do nothing for the two trapped Musketeers. "Something to give an edge to Athos and Porthos, just long enough to allow their escape, and not get us killed in the process."

For the first time since he had awoken, Aramis saw a genuine smile spread across Constance's delicate features. "I know just the thing."

Although he had just met the woman and, therefore, could hardly judge her character, there was something in her intelligent gaze that made Aramis believe that she knew exactly what she was doing.

In an odd manner, she reminded Aramis of Marsac. The way her eyes sparkled with excitement at the prospect of battle, where others might have coward away, was suddenly painfully familiar, even if Aramis could not help but smile at the recognition. "Good," he encouraged her. "But first, we need to cut these off," he added, his chin pointing to his strapped arm. There was no way he would be able to do anything with only one hand, even if the other was barely usable.

Constance looked at him like he was a mad man. And that too felt familiar.


	15. Chapter 14

~§~

"'Tis was not how I imagined m'day going," Porthos growled, hands wrapped around his knees as he pulled his legs closer to his chest. It went against everything that he believed in, to be hiding like a coward as he currently was, but there were over twenty Red Guards surrounding them and, despite their best efforts, they had failed to lure them away from where Aramis was hiding.

Neither of them had gotten much rest in more than two days, first searching the tunnels and then watching over their injured brother for the whole of the previous day and throughout the night. Aramis' fever had steadily climbed and, at one point, in the middle of the night, Porthos was sure that he was going to lose his friend to same sickness that had taken his mother.

After his mother's passing, Porthos had sworn that never again in his life would he allow himself to feel as hopeless and impotent has he had felt watching her slowly drowning in sweat and vomit, too weak to even raise her head for a drink of water. There were no weapons to fight a fever, no defenses, no options but to surrender and pray for the best.

His prayers had gone unanswered when he was five, begging to a God he was too young to understand, his voice perhaps too small to reach the Heavens. Tears and snot had dribbled down his face and hands as he had feverishly repeated words his mother had taught him, making promises that only a child can make and break. Writhing in pain and heat on her deathbed, her mother had smiled at his devotion, before her mind became lost.

There had been no snot this time, but his prayers had been just as fervent, just as heartfelt as he begged and then threatened to turn his back on faith if God refused to listen to his words again.

As the sun begun to rise over the horizon, on the day after they had rescued their brother from Rochefort, Aramis' fever broke. And Porthos' heart became slightly lighter.

It had been Athos who had taken that lightness and plunged it back into the dark by pointing out that the Red Guards were getting closer. The older Musketeer had spent the night dividing his attention between Aramis and the movements of the Cardinal's men through the surrounding streets, in the hope that they would either give up or move past them. They had no such luck.

It was just a matter of time until they ended up knocking on Constance's door, either because someone pointed them that direction or because it was one of the few houses left in the street that they had yet to search.

Moving Aramis somewhere else had been out of the question. He would never be able to walk on his own and two men carrying a third was all that the Red Guards would need to know that they had found their prey.

Porthos had cast another look at Aramis before they had left, heaving a tired sigh. After cleaning and bandaging his wounds the best they could -there had been at least one on his back that could've used a little bit of needlework, but neither of them was very good at it and it would be cowardly to ask Constance to do it- they had carefully moved the injured Musketeer to the spare room that, as Madame Bonacieux had assured them, her husband was thinking about renting anyway.

Aramis had not said a word from the time they had found him to the moment they carried him into that room, nothing but a few deep and guttural moans of pain as they were forced to shift his body around in order to get him more comfortable.

Porthos could not understand why Aramis had allowed Rochefort to go that far, to hurt him so much for...for _nothing_ , a ruse to prove something that they were all well aware of, that the Cardinal was a despicable man and that only the scum of the Earth would work for him. The mere thought of the matter filled Porthos heart with anger and made his fists hungry for guilty flesh.

It was one thing to do everything in one's power to protect the secrets of the kingdom, to safeguard the lives of their fellow soldiers and companions; _that_ was a cause Porthos understood, one that he had been prepared to give his up life and _had_ given his blood for, had so ever since he had met friends who were worth dying for, ever since he had become a soldier.

Allowing Rochefort to...Porthos felt the bile rise from his stomach at the mere thought of the burns covering Aramis' chest and back. To allow that...sewer rodent who pretended to be a man, to do that, to abuse him so, for the sake of planting a lie, _that_ Porthos could not understand.

Unless Aramis harbored some secret wish for Rochefort to claim his life.

The idea came out of nowhere and planted itself ins his mind, taking root and refusing to be disregarded, as ideas often did. It made Porthos shudder, an icy cold feeling taking over his limbs.

Now that he was aware of what Aramis had been through, now that he knew what his friend had _survived_ , Porthos couldn't help but wonder how attached to life Aramis truly was.

He had seen it before, during the war, and even prior to that, in the Court. Pigeon's whole family had been taken by disease, some type of boils that no one had been able to stop, not until it had taken his wife and three children. Pigeon alone had been spared, and life had gone on. Carelessness, rather than grief, had claimed Pigeon's life not one month after the passing of his family, sending him to his death under the wheels of a speeding carriage, during a robbery.

Porthos had been there; he could still remember the feel of Pigeon's sleeve slipping from the grasp of his fingers as the man raced towards the carriage that had been going at too great a speed for them to force it to stop. Everyone knew that it would be courting Death to even try, but Pigeon hadn't cared. And that had been the death of him.

Deathwish or not, it looked like Aramis would, quite possibly, outlive Porthos and Athos, the way things were going sideways. They were surrounded, taking cover behind a few barrels abandoned by the morning merchants when the Red Guards started flooding the courtyard. It was only a matter of time before the Guards decided to end the game of cat-and-mouse that they had been playing and started using their pistols.

"Treville should be here by now," Athos whispered, more to himself than to the man by his side.

Porthos nodded, nevertheless. "Ya think he got t'message?" he asked, wording his question around the fact that Athos seemed to have put a lot of faith into a girl that he had just met the previous day, in the Court of Miracles, of all places. She _had_ been helping them, Porthos couldn't deny that, and she had been crucial in getting them in and out of those accursed tunnels, but he also knew where she came from and how a place like the Court could mold and twist people.

"She got the message to him," Athos replied, reading him like a book. "There must be some other reason for his delay."

Porthos nodded again, turning his head to look at the street that led directly to the garrison. Still not a Musketeer in sight.

The faint whistle of a ball flying, quickly followed by the an explosion of white plaster on the wall behind them made Porthos curl down and seek protection. The Red Guards had decided to act, then.

Porthos and Athos wasted no time in returning fire, swiftly raising up just long enough to aim and shoot, not sticking around to wait and see if they hit their target. Screams of pain and the sounds of bodies hitting the ground were more than enough to know that they had not wasted a shot.

There was no time to recharge their pistols. The Red Guards were on top of them as soon as the smoke cleared, aware that there was only the two of them and the safety of numbers was on their side.

Athos and Porthos fought back-to-back, pushing and parrying, fending off two and three blades at the same time.

It was an impossible battle to maintain for longer than a few seconds. Athos, the better swordsman between the two of them, was still no match for the sheer number of bodies surrounding them and slowly pushing them into the open; Porthos, who had always preferred his fists to a blade, was having more trouble keeping track of every single attack that was coming his way, hissing in pain as one blade finally made contact, slicing skin and muscle on his left arm.

"Come on, ya lil'shits!" Porthos screamed in a mixture of anger and hopelessness. They were going to die in this courtyard and then it would be only a matter of minutes until the Cardinal's men figured out which house they had been protecting and were all over Aramis and Constance. The failure hurt more than the prospect of twenty blades piercing his body.

Instead of blades, however, it was a loud bang in the courtyard that drew the attention of Musketeers and Guards alike.

The sky above them, which had turned blue and cloudless at some point without anyone taking notice, was now red, like the clouds had decided to change color and join them on the land. Another explosion flashed above them, sounding like thunder and a yellow explosion of light cascaded down to join the red, forming a colorful rain.

The Red Guards shrieked and scrambled away from the colorful sparks tumbling towards them, ignoring their intended targets and using their arms and hands to protect their heads.

Porthos had no idea what those colorful and loud lights were. It sounded like black powder, but he had never seen colorful black powder before. What he _could_ see was that the sparks, like they were made of smoke instead of light, faded away long before they reached even a foot above the head of the tallest of the Red Guards.

They were fools if they were afraid of something that couldn't possibly do them any sort of harm-

When the first Guard dropped to the ground, his forehead a bloody mess, Porthos revised his theory. And then another fell, in exactly the same manner.

"Shit! Wha' t'hell is tha'?..." Porthos let out, fighting the urge to take a step back and protect his own head as well.

Athos, by his side, looked as surprised and confused as he, even as he pulled at the taller man's sleeve to get him to move. "It's just fireworks," he whispered, looking at the colorful lights still exploding in the sky above them. "I have seen them only once, from afar. They are nothing but bags filled with black powder and colorful dust," he added, clearly also lost as to why these, in particular, were killing men.

Because there was no denying that the Red Guards continued to drop around them. Two more had fallen less than a minute after the first. The ones still standing had such a look of terror on their faces that Porthos was sure they would be running away, were their legs capable of moving at that moment.

"There," Athos whispered as they pushed through the mass of bodies, his eyes looking at some spot on one of the roofs surrounding the courtyard. The roof across from Constance's.

While he could not see who stood there, the figure cleverly hidden from view, he could clearly see the trail of smoke as the firework sticks rose into the air before exploding in a burst of light and color. Still, he couldn't understand what was killing the Guards. Porthos closed his eyes for a moment, willing his ears to shed some light over the mystery his sight was unable to solve. There!

The sounds were very close by, but over the unfamiliar pop of the fireworks, Porthos could hear another explosion, a smaller one. One he was very familiar with. A pistol being fired.

"T'fireworks are just a decoy," he whispered to Athos. "Some'un is shootin' t'bastards!" Porthos grinned, a strange sight to see on a man surrounded on all sides with enemies. Logic told him that there was only one person that could be doing this, one man that could shoot with such precision and accuracy. But in his mind, that man was bedridden, consumed by fever and the pain from all that he had endured at Rochefort's hands and with a useless right arm.

They were almost at the edge of the courtyard when Porthos caught a glimpse of their improbable savior. From a window near the top of Constance's house, barely visible under the glare of the sun, he could see the very edge of a pistol barrel. Smoke exploded from its tip and, down below, another man screamed and fell dead.

It was not the time for questions, though. It was their chance to escape with their lives intact, and neither Porthos nor Athos were willing to waste the help they were receiving from above. It was not enough, though.

The fireworks went on for a few minutes, but the pistol had gone silent at some point, no more guards falling dead to the ground. Slowly, the Red Guards started to realize that God was no longer striking them from above, as some had seemed to think and begun to return their attention to the two Musketeers in their midst.

Even as swords were once more dawned in their direction, Porthos' primal concern was not for his safety but as to why Aramis had stopped his aid.

~§~

Treville was furious. Partly at the Cardinal's ability to scheme his way out and come out mostly unscathed and smelling of roses from his involvement both with Savoy and the explosion at the garrison, but mostly at his inability to prove that the man's hands were in deep in both tragedies.

The Cardinal was getting away, but at least Rochefort would not escape the King's justice. What was left of his life would be spent behind iron bars until the day to face the noose came. And it could not come too soon.

Being in the hands of the Cardinal, knowing what he knew about the First Minster, only meant that the Comte would probably not live long enough to regret his choices or swing from the end of a rope. Richelieu had a way of tying up loose ends that never failed to end in blood.

The Cardinal's words as they had left the King's presence had made sure to sent Treville into a state of constant worry and to start a frantic for Aramis. There had been no word from Athos or Porthos and every group of Musketeers that he had sent out had returned empty handed on the whereabouts of any of those three.

There was one person, however, who knew for certain where Aramis was, which was why Treville had left the constricting boundaries of his office and decided to shout and threaten his way into the Comte de Rochefort's prison cell at the Bastille. "Tell me where he is," the Captain demanded as soon as he stopped in front of the locked door.

Since the day he had decided to dedicate his life to serving the King, first as a commander of armies and then as the leader of the Musketeers, never once had Treville felt the allure of taking justice into his own hands.

Looking at the poor excuse of a man behind those bars, the Captain felt himself wavering in his beliefs for the first time.

"You are a fool," Rochefort said as a greeting, his cold eyes filled with mirth even in the gloom. "A fool that surrounds himself with bigger fools, so that his foolishness may pass unnoticed."

"Where is he?" Treville repeated, ignoring the blatant provocation in the Comte's words. If he were to lose his temper, Aramis' life would be forfeit and Rochefort's blood would certainly be on his hands. As it was, the tight grip he was keeping on his sword was the only thing preventing him from punching the smug man through the bars.

"Dead."

The Captain's nostrils flared in anger. "You lie," he hissed, because anything other than that would be unacceptable. "Where is he?"

"This one was quite young, was he not? Pretty too…well, at least he was before I started," the Comte went on, the sly smile on his face telling how much the words were meant to provoke Treville and how much pleasure he was taking from the Captain's reaction. "Is that how you pick the men that join your ranks? Or just by how far they're willing to go to serve your lost causes? Because one can tell that they're all incompetent fools, judging by the number that die under your command. Or maybe it is the hand that guides them..."

Treville's hand curled around the iron bars, white knuckles pressing into the metal. For a moment he was thrown back in time and was standing in front of the Duke of Savoy, informing him of the whereabouts of his Musketeers, the King's command forcing him to betray him men. Did Rochefort knew about that? Had the Cardinal shared those plans with him? "I could tell you about honor and duty," he eventually said, his voice low and carefully controlled. "But it would truly be a waste of French to try and explain concepts that you will never understand, Rochefort."

The Comte's smile slipped for the first time since the Captain's arrival, a vicious snarl replacing it. "It was truly a pity that I couldn't have more time with your half-Spanish dog, Treville," he voiced, his tongue slicking out to brush his lips. "The way his screams echoed around his broken body, the way he begged me to stop, to kill him…I only did my duty as a God-fearing man when I obliged his cowardly pleas and slit his throat. By the end, he was more than willing to do anything I thought to ask of him, spineless animal that he was," Rochefort commented, his tone flat and devoid of emotion. "You should be grateful...in a way, my blade saved his honor."

"You lie," Treville hissed, suddenly frustrated by the presence of bars between the two of them. The fact that Rochefort kept referring to Aramis in the past tense was starting to grade on him, his certainty that the Comte was lying fading with each sentence that he uttered. "Tell me where he is, and I'll make sure that the Cardinal doesn't do to you the same he did to Gerard!"

Rochefort's face paled and he made no attempt to deny a reality that he was well aware of. He had been the one that the Cardinal had used to make sure that no one knew of his involvement in the garrison's explosion, but the Comte was smart enough to know that he wasn't the only agent in the First Minister's pay. "I was the one who killed that rat," he said, his voice almost steady, barely betraying the doubt that he was starting to feel. "Were you not listening when I made my confession? I killed him because he could betray me, not the Cardinal," he added, his voice slightly raised above the whispering tone he'd been using so far.

The Cardinal had eyes and ears everywhere. Treville was aware of that and Rochefort, who was no fool, certainly knew it just as well. "You think yourself safe in here?" the Captain growled, stepping closer. "Do you think your title will protect you after the King Himself has damned you? Tell me what I want to know and you can count on my protection, the only anyone will offer you now."

Treville knew that the Comte was a proud and pompous man, but he had never expected him to be so to the extent to throw away his life. Rochefort laughed, a dry sound that made the hair at the back of Treville's neck stand at attention. "A fool, surrounded by bigger fools," he said again. "I left the fool you're looking for hanging from the ceiling, his pants soiled like a child and his throat gaping open, like a whore's legs!"

Treville's anger consumed him, his whole world turning blinding white as he hit the iron bars. The sound of metal hitting metal echoed across the small prison, the only hint the Captain had his pistol in his hand, his finger itching to discharge it.

Slowly, in a gesture that required more strength than he thought himself to possess, Treville loosened the grip on his pistol and withdrew, taking a deep breath.

Rochefort wasn't going to tell him anything. He was merely wasting Treville's time, stalling while the Cardinal, no doubt, sent his men to whatever hideout Rochefort had used to kill Aramis. "I hope you'll be spared the noose," Treville whispered before leaving. "It will give me great pleasure to know you rotting away in some forgotten cell for the rest of your miserable life, knowing that those whom you have wronged will live full and joyful lives, basking in the light of a sun that you will never see again."

Rochefort laughed, the cruel sound bouncing around the walls like a wolf seeking his prey. "Like I said...a fool."

~§~

If nothing else, the fireworks and the hidden shooter had managed turned the tide of the fight, making sure it would be less of a massacre and more of an actual fight.

For Athos, there was only the sense of danger and avoiding serious injury, not because he feared either, but for what was at stake. With only two of them fighting the Red Guards, one of them falling would surely mean the end of the battle for the other one. He could not do that to Porthos.

They were both exhausted, the effort of lifting their blades becoming more and more of a impossible task, muscles quivering and beginning to turn rebellious, refusing to obey his commands. And then he saw it.

Back when Athos was a small boy, he and Thomas used to spend one hour a day with Brother Serras, learning the holy scripture. For the most part, those stories were a terrible bore and he barely remembered half of them.

There were some, however, that he'd never forgotten, like Cain's murder of his brother or Moses and his people's escape from Egypt. As a child, the idea of such distant lands and the mysteries hidden there had been nothing short of wondrous, filling him with awe and curiosity, longing to see such things and live those kinds of adventures. The parting of the Red Sea, in particular, had impressed him, for truly only a superior being could manage such an astonishing deed.

Athos had tried to imagine what such a feat would look like. He had failed to do so as a child; his adult self, however, had no need of using his imagination. He was seeing it now.

Instead of water, it was a sea of red from the Guards' uniforms that he saw parting reluctantly, forced apart by a flood of blue from the Musketeers' cloaks. Leading them, looking more fierce than Moses defending his people, was Treville.

With the balanced tipped, the Red Guards soon realized that they were fighting a battle that they could not win or cared to die for, a sudden chorus of ' _I surrender_ ' replacing the sound of clashing swords. It was over in minutes.

"How are you two?" Treville asked as soon as the last of the Guards dropped his weapon on the ground. Even as he asked, the Captain's eyes were carefully running over them, analyzing every splotch of blood and tear in their clothing. "Do you require a surgeon?"

Athos shook his head, regretting the action as it sent his vision spinning. It was nothing but tiredness, he was sure of that, but still it would not do for his reputation and pride to flounder around like a drunk man after battle, certainly not when he could not recall the last time he had sat down with a glass of wine on his hands. "We're alright, sir," he finally answered, focusing his eyes on the most solid of the three Trevilles he was currently seeing. "What took you so long?"

From the Captain's raised eyebrow, Athos gathered that his question had come out rather demanding, perhaps - most likely - too insubordinate for a Musketeer addressing his leader, but he was too tired to care.

"Rochefort is in prison," Treville informed them. "I was returning from speaking to him when I met your new friend," he pointed out, his voice flat and composed. He was not justifying himself in front of his men, Athos realized, merely sharing with them important information. "Quite the feisty one, that little lady...had to lock her in the kitchen with Serge to stop her from coming with the rest of the regiment to rescue you."

Athos could feel a smile taking over his lips, imagining Charlotte's lack of propriety and respect when talking to Treville. It was a wonder that their message had come across at all.

"We came as fast as we could," Treville concluded, looking around at the bodies on the ground and taking in his men. "And Aramis, where is he? Have you found him? Does he live?"

Despite the calm and efficient way the questions were asked, Treville was doing a poor job at masking his concern. In between escaping the tunnels, providing assistance to their injured friend and escaping the Red Guards, there had been no time and no one available to send word to Treville, something that the former Comte had deeply regretted when they had found themselves surrounded. Now, unaware of what had happened so far, Athos could only imagine what sort of grim conclusions the Captain was reaching from the absence of Aramis from the battle. "He is safe," he said, putting some of Treville's concerns at rest.

While it had been clear that it had been Aramis' aim that had aided them at the beginning of the battle, the abrupt way in which it stopped fueled Athos' own concerns over what might have happened to his friend. Porthos, fidgeting by his side, seemed more than eager to go find the answer to that question.

"We left'im with Madame Bonacieux," Porthos said, his gaze still lingering at the window where they had seen the pistol barrel. "He wasn't lookin' so good. Best we-"

There was no need to say anything further. The three moved as one, the same worry urging them forward, rushing their steps towards the house.

The house felt empty, too silent after the clamor of battle. "Aramis? Madame Bonacieux?" Porthos called out, getting no answer in return.

Their fears doubled in measure, making them race up the stairs that led to the room where they had left them both. More worrying than the fact that Aramis wasn't answering, it was Constance' silence that was stealing the breath from their collective chests. Had the Red Guards snuck past them and been inside the house already? Were they racing to meet two corpses?

As they entered the room where they had left Aramis, the only thing that Athos registered was the fact that the bed was empty and his friend was nowhere to be seen. So focused was his attention on that particular detail, that his foot slipped on something at the door of the bedroom, nearly making him lose his balance. Whatever he had stepped on rolled away with the sound of metal. A musket ball.

There were more on the floor, scattered like children's toys.

They found Aramis alone, like a boneless scarecrow, leaning against the window. By his side, still held in loose fingers, was one of the pistols Porthos had left behind, the pouch of gunpowder spilling its contents on the wooden floor like black snow.

Porthos was racing to their friend' side before anyone could react. Athos thought to follow, but his body seemed utterly detached from his mind and paying no attention to his thoughts.

He had to look down, to make sure that his feet were not, in fact, strapped to the ground, preventing him from taking another step. Inside his chest, Athos could feel his heart racing, thrashing as a madman. He was absolutely sure that Porthos was going to search Aramis' body and find the musket ball that had claimed his life; that he would turn his body and everyone would be able to see the large stain on his chest, red and accusing.

"He's alive," Porthos announced, relief making his deep voice sound lighter, younger. "I can't see no new wounds on'im, but his fever's back."

"What in Heaven's name happened here?" Treville said, his eyes taking in the mess of supplies on the floor, Aramis' blood-stained bandages and the conspicuous absence of any of the house's owners. "Where are the Bonacieux?"

Athos was beginning to wonder the same thing. They had left Aramis in Constance's care and, while the woman held no obligation to do so, she had promised to look after him while they were gone. "Monsieur Bonacieux is traveling on business and Madame is-"

"Right here," a woman's voice announced, from the door, her face covered in soot. "What happened to him?"

Athos blinked, wondering if his exhaustion was making him imagine things, for the woman was a mirror of absolute composure, behaving in such a manner that hardly reflected her appearance. Judging from her face and clothes, one would think that she had been trapped inside a chimney. "Are you quite well, _Madame_?"

The smile that blossomed on her dirty face was like a ray of sunlight. And then Athos realized that she was not covered in soot, but gunpowder. "It was you!" he let out in surprise. "Where did you find the fireworks? I wasn't aware that their manufacture had already spread to French soil..." And he had absolutely no idea how a simple cloth merchant would have access to something so rare and expensive, but that went without saying.

Constance's cheeks reddened under the black dust. "They were a gift, from the last time my husband bought some rather expensive silk in his travels," she explained. "Best he doesn't find out what happened to his 'gunpowder sticks'..."

"Best 'im not finding out 'bout _any_ of this," Porthos pointed out. "Ya talked to 'im? Did he say anythin' 'bout wha 'happen'?" he asked, clearly no longer talking about Constance's absent husband. He let out a faint huff of air as he pulled Aramis' unconscious form from the floor and carried him to the bed.

Their friend looked dwarfed in Porthos' hold, thin, pale limbs askew and dragging through the floor.

"He's a very stubborn man, your friend is," Constance let out, sounding slightly offended by that particular aspect of Aramis' personality. "It was all I could do to stop the fool from going downstairs and getting himself killed trying to help you two," she added with a gentle smile.

It was certainly one of the most infuriating aspects of Aramis' nature, and one that Athos was slowly starting to learn how to deal with. There was no stopping him when the man decided to risk his life for some foolish errand, that much was guaranteed but, as Constance had cleverly figured out, steered in the right direction it was possible to save Aramis from himself. "The fireworks were a very nice touch, _Madame_ ," he recognized, knowing that without them, Aramis would've been taken down after firing his first shot. In the condition he was in, it would have been impossible for him to reload at even a quarter of his usual speed.

Constance shrugged, like what had just happened was common-place in her life. "It was that or shouting from a window at the top of my lungs," she said with a smile, "and I like to save my shouting for someone who deserves it."

From the look she gave Aramis and everyone else inside that small room, Athos had an idea that there was going to be some of that shouting in their near future, if they misbehaved.

"I cannot thank you enough for your assistance, _Madame_ ," Treville offered, replacing his hat on his head. "I shall see that a cart is sent to transport Aramis back to the garrison and allow your life to return to normalcy as soon as possible."

For a moment, Athos was certain that he'd seen disappointment in her face, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"Yes, normalcy," she agreed with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'd very much enjoy that."

Athos, more than accustomed to live his life in a state of constant lies and half truths, had no trouble recognizing the falseness of her words.


	16. Chapter 15

~§~

 _A week later…._

The sound of his friends' angry voices as they talked to the Captain down in the courtyard, reached Aramis' ears, even if their words did not.

Sick of being confined to his rooms for too long, staring at the same boring four walls, the injured Musketeer decided that it was high time for him to stand up, put on proper clothes like a gentleman and join his friends for a meal. And if that decision happened to satisfy his curiosity on what matter had them all so riled up, it was nothing more than an appealing incentive.

The cuts on his feet were all but healed and the infected wounds on his back had stopped smelling like death. Other than the fact that he was still wearing more bandages than clothes, Aramis felt certain that he was ready to get back to his life.

Of course, if he were to follow everyone else's advice on the matter, Aramis would remain in his bed for a few more days and finish getting his strength back properly. But that would mean asking Athos and Porthos what was happening and what they were so angry about and, honestly, Aramis was not certain that they would answer him with the truth. As it was, they had barely been honest about their own injuries, despite the fact that he could clearly see the limp in Athos walk and the way Porthos protected his side.

It was not that he had lost faith in his friends or thought any less of them, but ever since his return to the garrison, Aramis felt like they were treating him somewhat...differently. Where once had been the beginnings of a true brotherhood, there was now an awkwardness that felt unfamiliar and intrusive, making Aramis' heart ache with the feeling of loss for what might have been.

He had not been aware of much over the course of the last days, memories past a certain point into his ordeal in the tunnels gaining the cloudy consistence of dreams, making it impossible for him to discern what had been real and what his feverish mind had conjured up to torment him.

There was no recollection in his mind of being found by Athos and Porthos, or of his and Constance's –apparently- dashing rescue using nothing more than fireworks and a good bit of sharp-shooting; on that matter, in fact, Aramis was quite certain that Porthos and Athos were having a laugh at his expense. He also had no recollection of even knowing a woman by the name of Constance.

What Aramis did remembered was a youthful ghost who stole coins from his pocket and Marsac, wanting him to follow somewhere. While he had been told that the 'ghost' was in fact a young girl named Charlotte, Marsac's presence could be nothing more than a figment of his imagination, for it seemed improbable –impossible- that the other man would've returned to Paris with the single purpose of seeking Aramis in the tunnels underneath Paris and aid in his escape.

For a brief time after returning from Savoy, Aramis had entertained the idea of leaving it all behind and go in search for Marsac on his own, to give up his dream as a Musketeer, find the man who had saved in life during the massacre and repay his debt. But he had been weak and had felt safe inside the walls of the garrison and that idea, that compulsion, slowly died away. Still, Aramis often wondered where his former companion might be and what was his life now. Was Marsac even alive still? Had he remained in French soil? It was hard to imagine any sort of happy answer to those questions when the last image he had of Marsac was that of a broken man, walking away into a wintery forest.

With his mind so taken by those memories, it was possible that he had mentioned Marsac to the others, perhaps even confuse one of them for his lost companion. Could they recognize the name? Had they finally discovered his involvement with Savoy? It preoccupied Aramis that there was so much about the week before that he could not remember and piece together. What could he have said or do that justified Porthos' and Athos' odd behavior?

There had been a strange expression in both Porthos' and Athos' eyes when he caught them looking at him of late. Aramis had initially thought that they might have been angry at him, for keeping his mission a secret and putting their lives at risk when they were forced to go rescue him. That he could have understand and, after asking for their forgiveness and comprehension, he was certain that things could have returned to their proper place.

But the expression was not one of anger, of even disappointment. If he allowed his own insecurities and fears to have the run of his thoughts, Aramis would say that it was pity he was seeing in his friends' eyes.

The only justification that Aramis could think was that his actions during the time he had been a prisoner of the Cardinal's man were the cause of such sentiment. But only two people had been present to witness his humiliation and, while he was fairly certain that he'd not said anything about the matter during the days he had been lost in fever, the same could not be said about his torturer.

Porthos had left one of his head scarves behind, the tips folded and tied so that Aramis could easily use it to support his broken arm whenever he was sitting up. Still, slipping into a pair of breeches and pulling on his boots using only one hand proved to be an epic effort that had left the injured Musketeer sweating and shaking.

Outside, the voices had lowered in tone, quickly surpassed by the familiar noises from a busy garrison. The distant sound of hammers, that had been his constant companion during the week he had spent in bed, were still banging away, the odd heartbeat of a wooden building in repair somewhere inside the garrison's grounds.

His ungainly walk, hindered by sore feet and supported by only one hand, gave Aramis away before he could surprise any of them. Athos, Porthos and the Captain were sitting by the table nearest to the kitchen, clay glasses and a bottle of wine scattered in the space between them. As he neared the edge of the steps that would take him to the courtyard, Aramis could feel the change in their mood, their voices quietening down as soon as they were aware of his presence.

It was not the first time it had happened. In the past days, more often than not, Aramis would wake up in his bed with the feeling that a conversation had been happening on the edges of his consciousness, only to be cut short as soon as someone noticed that his eyes were open. From the guilty looks on their faces, both in his quarters and now, Aramis could almost guess that his name had been involved in the discussed topic.

"Aramis!" Porthos let out, a forced quality to the enthusiasm in his voice. "Wha'ya doing up, mate?"

Aramis swallowed all the questions that he wanted to ask and bit down his desire to call them out on their subterfuge. "I got bored," he simply said, partly in truth.

Maneuvering the wooden stairs down made him question whether if getting out of bed had been such a great idea after all. Midway through it his feet already felt like they were on fire and his legs were shaking like a newborn colt. Deciding to save himself from an ungraceful fall down the steps, Aramis bent down his knees with a sonorous pop and sat down on the step, looking for all intents and purposes like that had been his plan all along.

He had expected several rebukes, maybe even an attempt to force him back into his quarters; instead, Aramis' poorly disguised failure at keeping himself on his feet had been met by silence. Looking up from his intense study of his own boots, he almost growled in frustration. There is was again, that collective look that made him feel exposed and inadequate.

Even the Captain seemed to have joined in, gazing up at him like Aramis was a broken thing that he had no idea how to fix. It was a familiar look in the Captain's eyes, the same look he had given Aramis after their return from Savoy. It made Aramis feel flushed and nauseated, thinking about what it could possibly mean.

"Would you like some food?" Athos offered, the distraction saving Aramis from making a fool of himself in front of them. "Maybe some cheese and watered down wine?"

The idea of opening his mouth to do anything else other than expel the bile rising up from his stomach, seemed unappealing and impossible at the moment. "Of course," Aramis found himself saying with a smile. After all, he too knew how to play the deception game.

The idea that his friends were aware of something shameful about his actions grew inside Aramis, taking room inside his chest and leaving space for nothing else, not even air. He needed to know for sure or be forever unable to look them in the eye.

The following day he planned to do something about it. Now that he found himself walking more or less on his own and no longer under such close scrutiny from both Athos and Porthos, Aramis decided that it was time to put his doubts to rest. It was perhaps an ill-advised plan, a terrible idea even, but one that Aramis could not bring himself to let go.

When asked directly, the others were all-too evasive and vague in their details of what had happened or even what had been the fate of those responsible for the garrison's explosion. Athos and Porthos had told him that the Cardinal had managed to escape unblemished from the entire matter but that his man - Rochefort they had called him - had been imprisoned, his guilt more than clear for all to see. Not only had the man confessed to the explosions, he'd admitted to being the one to have murdered Gerard in his prison cell.

And that, above all else, was the image that the Musketeer needed to see to sleep better at night. For all that he could tell himself and the others that it had all been a mission and that he had no regrets or misplaced feelings about what had happened, the truth was that Rochefort had made him suffer and doubt himself. More than physically, it had been the man's words that Aramis could not forget.

Athos would tell him that he had nothing to prove, that he should let the matter go. And right as he was about that, Aramis could still see the anger and the bloodlust that took over his friends' gazes whenever the Comte's name was mentioned. Something important had been lost, and Aramis wanted it back.

Aramis owed Rochefort nothing, but he also did not wish for the last image he had of the man to be his smirking face, enjoying himself as he broke a Musketeer. No, the last image that Aramis wished to have was of the man in tatters, behind iron bars, pissing into a bucket.

It was hardly the most pious of sentiments, but then again Aramis admitted to being nothing else but a flawed man, with much room for improvement. And it would certainly make him sleep better at night.

In his head, Aramis had already planned the entire conversation that he would have with Rochefort, how he would pry from the man every answer that he needed and how he would make sure that he was being told the truth. He was prepared to look straight into those cold eyes and feel nothing at all other than pity and disdain, to rise above the filth inside that prison cell and know in his heart that he was the better man.

Aramis had barely taken notice of the streets he walked past, until his feet stopped in front of the gates of the Bastille, Paris' singular prison for those of noble birth. His heart raced inside his chest at the prospect of facing his foe, partly in doubt of whether his mind would once more betray him, partly in excitement for the imminent verbal duel.

The one thing Aramis had not been prepared for was to hear the jailer at the door telling him, in no uncertain terms, that the Comte de Rochefort was no longer a prisoner there, for he had been released earlier that week, on the King's orders.

~§~

Athos had waited at the arranged meeting place for hours, before resigning himself to accept the fact that Charlotte was not coming. His first thought had been one of deep fear for the young girl's safety, imagining that Bourdon had learned of her involvement in Athos escape from the Court and had taken his revenge on the child.

He had been fully prepared to march into the Court of Miracles and search for the young girl for himself when a boy, around Charlotte's age, pulled at his sleeve.

Athos recoiled and made a grab for his sword, having taken no notice of the boy's nearness until he had touched him.

"Y're the one they call 'Thos?" the boy asked, looking up at him with large brown eyes. He had seen the aborted movement towards the weapon, seemingly content that the blade remained sheathed. "'Tis is fer ya, sir, from Charlotte."

Athos let go of his sword, suddenly feeling foolish for having reached for it in the first place. He blamed his edginess on recent events and the fact that Rochefort was out of his prison cell, but truly he had just been too distracted by his thoughts and the touch had startled him.

The boy was holding up a purse in hands, the softening leather signaling its emptiness. Aramis' coin purse. "She said tha' t'coins were fer her help and tha' was all the payment she'd been requiring," the boy went on, pushing the piece of leather into Athos' gloved hand. Once empty, his hand remained extended, expecting a payment of his own.

Stunned, Athos fished the first coin that his fingers touched inside his pocket and handed it to the boy, not even looking at its value. Charlotte's message had been as evident as the boy's extended hand. She had no need for his help.

Touched by the girl's aid and sharp personality, Athos had offered to procure an apprentice position for her at the palace before they had parted ways. Collecting every favor he had managed to gather, a position had been secured for her as a chamber maid and Athos had send word for her to tell her the good news.

It was clear that she was of a different opinion.

Athos clenched the empty purse in his hand, realizing that the boy was long gone. His heart felt small and tight, thinking of what might become of Charlotte's future inside the Court. But his only options were to either march into the Court with his fellow Musketeers and prove the child's misgivings about soldiers right, or he could respect her choice.

~§~

Porthos cut through the long piece of wood methodically, the serrated edge of the blade in his hands moving back and forth amidst a cloud of sawdust. His face and back were already covered in sweat and dust, even if his thoughts were too far away to take notice of such mundane things.

In the following days after Aramis' rescue and the Red Guards' attack, the Captain had become more distant and quicker to lose his temper around the garrison.

It had not taken long for him and Athos to figure out that one of the reasons behind Treville's ill disposition was due to the news he'd received from the King the day after they had brought Aramis back home.

Rochefort was free.

The King had fallen for the Cardinal' rhetoric once more and had allowed himself to be convinced that the Comte could be of better service to France as a spy on Spanish soil. A dangerous mission that, given the odds, could still end in the death sentence that Treville had fought for, but that for all intents and purposes, meant that the vile man had regained his freedom.

To the Captain, the position in Spain was nothing more than the Cardinal's reward for the loyalty his man had shown. Rochefort's words had guaranteed Richelieu's safety in the meeting with the King and, rather than have him killed and raise further suspicions or give the Musketeers time to gather more proof, the First Minister had used his influence with the King to cleverly placed Rochefort out of their reach.

All that Aramis had been through, all the heartache and pain, the shame that had been brought to his name by being falsely accused of murdering another man, his imprisonment, his suffering at Rochefort's hands, none would matter for a thing, because one of those responsible for it was the King's right-hand man and the other was currently on his way to another kingdom, where they could not follow without the risk of being labeled spies as well.

Porthos had not received the news well, punching his fist through the stable's wooden wall to avoid going to the palace and punch the Cardinal himself. The same wall he was currently repairing, because the Captain had not been pleased by his angry display.

While they had all agreed that it was best not to tell Aramis until the man had regained some of his strength back, none of them were particularly good at hiding their personal feelings on the matter whenever he was around.

Fortunately for them, Aramis was not around much yet, his body still tiring too easily after the fever and his mind allowing for little rest during the night.

It shouldn't have surprised Porthos that, strong-willed as he was, Aramis had taken the matter into his own hands as soon as he had been able to walk more than five feet without losing his breath.

With the rain falling heavily, as it had been for the past hour, there were not that many Musketeers wandering around the training square. The familiar lone figure walking across the yard was all-too-easy to spot.

The sight of his friend, face still pale and gaunt hidden in the shadow of his feathered hat, bracing his broken arm against his chest as he dejectedly walked by gave Porthos enough pause to pull him from his wandering thoughts. "Aramis?"

Last time he had seen the younger man, he'd been in his quarters, claiming that he wished to do some reading for the remainder of the morning. Clearly a planned lie, for he had just walked through the front archway, coming from the street.

Upon hearing his name, Aramis looked up, water falling from his hat and down his back as he moved his head. "'tis not a good time for a conversation, my friend," he offered with a fake smile, pulling his cloak closer. "Perhaps later..."

Porthos set the saw down, cleaning his sweaty hands on his breeches. His heart thundered inside his chest, worried at the defeated tone he could hear in his friend's voice. Looking up, he could see that the Captain's door was closed and the man himself was nowhere in sight.

Athos had been gone all day, attending to a personal matter that Porthos was fairly sure involved the new friend he had made at the Court of Miracles. For some reason, the man seemed determined to save that one little girl from the same life that Porthos had led, a sentiment that the tall Musketeer could only praise.

But that left him alone to find an answer when Aramis turned to face him once more and quietly asked, '"Did you know? Did all of you?"

Porthos made no attempt to pretend he did not know of what Aramis spoke of; he would not offend his friend in such manner. He could only nod. They had hidden the truth to protect him, but he could see now that doing so had only made matters worse.

When the punch hit him straight in the jaw, the pain and strength behind it was as surprising as the action itself. "Wha-?"

Aramis, however, didn't seem ready to stop and explain himself. His fist was flying again, aiming for Porthos' left eye. Porthos raised his right arm, blocking the attack. The force behind the punch that hit his forearm was enough to make the bone sting. "What are ya doing?" he yelled, blocking yet another punch. More than the strength of the blows, it was the fact that Aramis was using his broken arm as well as his left that was worrying Porthos. The pain didn't seemed to be registering with the man now, but Porthos was sure that it would manifest itself soon enough.

Strangely, Aramis was not blindly attacking him in some fit of rage; that much was easy to realize. He was methodical and expertly pushing Porthos from under the cover of the stable's roof and into the mud-filled yard, where the larger man's weight would make it harder for him to keep his balance and defense. Whatever was going through his friend's mind, Porthos could see that his aim was not to vent his anger but rather to defeat him in combat.

However, the last thing that Porthos wanted to do was hit Aramis back and make matters worse. He'd sparred with Aramis before, either in training exercises requested by Treville, or simply because they were bored. They had also fought side-by-side, mostly in tavern brawls brought on by Porthos' gambling or Aramis' amorous adventures. This was nothing like either of those situations.

Porthos deflected and defended himself from the other man's fists as best he could, but he refused to attack with anything else but his pleas for an explanation. When none was forthcoming, Porthos just resigned himself to be the outlet for whatever it was that his brother was feeling. If that would help Aramis at all, Porthos would gladly accept a broken nose in the trade.

"Fight me, damn you!" Aramis breathed out, his arms hanging by his sides, sweat and rain running down the side of his face. His hat, lost shortly after the first lunge, was a soggy mess by the side of the stable. "Why do you refuse to fight me?"

Porthos frowned, blood dripping down from his split eyebrow. "Why would I do tha'?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"Isn't that how Treville tests the new recruits?" Aramis offered, clutching his right arm close to his chest, even as he circled to attack again. "Isn't this how they prove their worth?"

The question had been so earnestly asked that Porthos could only assume that Aramis was not jesting. It was enough to stun him, frozen in place, staring at his friend. Why in God's name would Aramis think that he needed to prove his worth to anyone?

The world shifted on its axis around Porthos and it took him a second to realize that the reason for that was Aramis' leg, swiping his feet from under him and throwing him onto his back. Mud splashed across his eyes and the world dimmed a few shades as his head hit the ground.

When Porthos managed to force his eyes to stop blinking and focus, Aramis was straddling his chest, left fist poised for attack. He was trembling hard, the fury that seemed to have fueled him until that point slowly ebbing away.

"Ya're not a new recruit," Porthos reminded him, his gaze trading the menacing fist for his friend's eyes. There was such pain in there... "Everyone here knows ya've nothin' to prove to anyone, _mon ami_...why would ya think otherwise?"

"I-" Aramis started, breathing deeply, nostrils flaring. "I failed with Rochefort...I failed as a Musketeer...you all believe me too broken, or too fragile, or too much of a fool to be treated as an equal and I-"

The words were pouring out of his mouth and Porthos was no longer certain that they were even directed at him. One thing _was_ certain though... "We don't believe you broken, Aramis," he voiced, hoping his friend could hear his sincerity through the turmoil in his head. "We never did."

"Then why did you hide Rochefort's release from me? Why do you treat me like an old, dry piece of parchment, something bound to give in at the slightest hint of pressure?"

Suddenly Porthos knew exactly how badly their attempts to act naturally and keep their emotions hidden had been, the damage that they had caused by even trying. He knew where Aramis had gone and what he had discovered there. He was right; they should've told him. "Ya're one of the bravest men I know, Aramis," Porthos whispered, tears welling up in his eyes under cover of the rain. "And ya're right, we should've told ya sooner, we should've been honest with ya, but after all that had happened and the way yer mind kept going back to Sav..."

Aramis' body went rigid, his raised hand dropping to the ground, his balance suddenly lost. "What do you speak of?"

Porthos closed his eyes, escaping for a moment from the intensity of the gaze scrutinizing him, judging his words. He had promised himself that he would wait for the right time to approach the matter of Savoy and the massacre with Aramis, perhaps after a good amount of wine had been shared by both and words became slurred, and emotions too drowned and slow to overcome the conversation. Instead, his mouth had run ahead of him and chosen _now_ , of all times, to bring the matter to light. Perhaps Aramis would be furious enough to punch him into oblivion and Porthos could pretend he had never said those words. "Aramis..."

The crowd that had gathered around their fight became suddenly apparent, their argument being witnessed by all the Musketeers who happened to be in the garrison. The collective weight of their attentive gazes crashed upon Porthos and Aramis with the strength of herd of wild horses and if Porthos felt crushed by it, Aramis seemed to have completely lost the ability to move or even breath.

It was all too easy for Porthos to push his friend aside and drag him along towards shelter, under the stable's roof. Their audience outside lost its interest as they no longer seemed intent in killing each other and disappeared from view. Their audience, inside, was more concerned with the tasty bundles of hay in front of them than with the two humans in their midst.

"Aramis, please, breathe," Porthos found himself pleading. What little color there had been in his friend's face had washed away and try as he might, Porthos couldn't see Aramis' chest moving. "I swear t'ya, no one else knows. Please, trust me on tha'."

Aramis pushed him away, stumbling towards the wall Porthos had been repairing, his left hand searching the feel of the wood as an anchor, guiding his way down as he collapsed. "How did you..." he finally whispered, hiding his face behind his hands. "Was it the Captain?"

Porthos lowered himself down, sitting next to his friend. "T'Cap'ain didn't say a word," he confessed. "So, it's true then...ya were there, with'em?"

Aramis nodded, forcing his hands down as he looked sideways, meeting Porthos' eyes. "Do you think even less of me now? Do you believe me a coward...a traitor? Please, say it plainly if it is so and do not torture me with kind words!"

Porthos couldn't believe what his ears were hearing. He felt deeply worried for a brother who had been put through so much pain and sorrow; he felt shame at the joy he had experienced at knowing that Aramis had survived when so many others had perished; and he certainly felt proud that, despite all that, his friend was still one of the bravest and kindest men Porthos had ever met in his life. In all of that and the countless other feelings and emotions he was experiencing at the moment, Porthos could not fathom a single reason to think less of Aramis. "I think ya're a bloody fool, tha's wha'I think," he said bluntly.

That certainly gave Aramis pause. "A fool? For what? Questioning your actions or failing to question mine?"

"Both, fer tha' matter," Porthos said, giving it some thought. "Ya have y'er reasons to keep this a secret, and they're y'er reasons to have, but know that every man in this garrison respects ya and is proud t'fight by y'er side...I know Athos and myself couldn't be prouder t'call ya a brother," he went on, a smile spreading across his lips. "But y'er reasons don't mean you have t'face those memories, t'weight of wha'happen', all alone."

Aramis bit his lip, running his good hand through his wet hair, leaving it sticking out in all directions. "I-"

"The writing above the front arch, what does it mean?"

Both Porthos and Aramis jumped at the third voice, neither having noticed when Athos had entered the stable, leading his wet horse inside.

"I have seen you read books written in Latin, I _know_ you can understand its meaning," Athos went on, stubbornly looking like he wasn't going anywhere until he got his answer.

" _Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno_ ," Aramis recited, the words flat against his tongue, like they meant nothing at all.

"One for all," Athos translated, "and-"

"And all for one," Porthos finished. While he couldn't understand Latin, the meaning of the inscription that greeted every Musketeer upon his return to the garrison had been one of the first things he had asked. The motto seemed so simple and yet it was there to remind them always of something very important. "It means," he said, gripping Aramis' shoulder, "y'er never alone, no matter how hard ya try."

"And that you can always count on your brothers to stand by your side," Athos added, sitting down on Aramis' other side, effectively flanking him between his two friends.

Aramis smiled, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. "One for all?"

"And all for one, brother," Athos and Porthos said. "All for one."

~§~ EPILOGUE ~§~

 _Six years later_

Athos was beginning to wonder if the Captain was trying to personally punish him for some foul deed that currently escaped his recollection.

There had been that tavern brawl the past week with a couple of Red Guards, but that had been mostly D'Artagnan and Aramis' fault rather than his own. The only thing he and Porthos had done was stop their friends from overtaxing themselves in their task of breaking as many Red Guards' noses as they could.

And the week before that, there was the whole mess with Marie de Medici's return and Aramis' running off with the King's legitimate –even if slightly unknown- nephew and heir to the throne, but that had been as much the Captain's fault as their own and they had managed to keep everything under secrecy and come off smelling of roses.

No, the real reason why the Captain had assigned such a vile task to him and not the others was because deep down inside, the man hated actually him.

Probably as much as Athos hated training new recruits.

It had been a couple of years since Treville had veered from the usual path of handpicking men to join the Musketeers and had begun to offer the opportunity to any who wished to try, high and low born in equal measure. Gone as well were the fights with Porthos to prove their worth, as it had been for Athos. For some reason, the big man refused to continued to do so after the events that led to Rochefort's exile from France and Treville had not been able to convince him otherwise ever since.

Which meant that the responsibility of maintaining the excellency that the regiment was known for had fallen on the shoulders of those training the new recruits, unfortunate souls like Athos at the present time. Of the new batch, there was one in particular that seemed to be not entirely bad, a young fellow with a spring to his step and who seemed incapable of being still for more than two minutes.

As if Athos did had enough trouble with D'Artagnan...

The fact was, the kid showed promise. He was light on his feet and not entirely bad with a sword. His agility and swiftness made up for his slender body and shortness and more often than not, he would best those twice his size.

"You're holding it wrong, Charles," Athos let out with a sigh. So much for promise... "The wrist must remain loose, your strength coming from the arm instead, or you'll find yourself losing your sword within seconds of your first fight," he reminded, holding the youth's arm to explain.

Startled blue eyes rose up to meet his and Athos froze in place. It had been years since the memory of her had entered his mind, and yet now, looking at those eyes, Athos felt himself taken back to the time when he had first met feisty little Charlotte. But it could not be, could it?

"Stare any longer and people will start talking... sir," the youth said with a wicked smile.

And if the eyes had left doubts in his mind, that smile had been certain to clear them. It was Charlotte, her hair cut in a manly fashion and her feminine shapes hidden beneath the loosen clothing and a long doublet, but there was no mistaking the fact that it _was_ her.

"You offered me help once," she said, her voice low in deference to those who might have been listening to them. "I've decided to accept it."

Athos felt divided in between the need to smile at her gumption and the urge to throttle her neck. "That was six years ago," he reminded her. The number of times he had wondered what had become of this child, if she was safe, if there was a roof over her head and food on her table. "And you said no then."

She lowered her eyes. Her hair had become darker as she grew older, but it still curled as it covered her eyes. "I also changed my opinion on Musketeers," she reminded him.

Athos frowned, not because the truthfulness of her words, but because of the position she was placing him in. By all rules and orders that he had, Athos should report her deceit and escort her out, never to return. There was no room for women in a soldiers' garrison. But then again, by all rules and orders, he should have died in the Court of Miracles six years ago and Aramis left to rotten underneath the streets of Paris until someone stumbled across his corpse. Following rules, as Treville often reminded him, was not Athos' best quality. "And you think yourself worthy of becoming one?" he asked her, the same question that was thrown to every recruit at least once a day.

Her smile brightened, eyes rising up to meet his once again. "I can only hope to one day be scary enough to look like a Musketeer," Charlotte replied with a wink. "But then again...you still don't look scary enough to be one either."

Athos smiled, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he remembered those as being the first words that they had exchanged. "Are we meant to be scary?" he asked now just like he had asked then.

"Only to those who deserve it," Charlotte replied, her voice mirroring the fervor if her conviction.

Athos nodded. Yes, she would make a fine Musketeer one day. He and his companions would make sure of that. But in the meantime... "Aramis! Come here!" he called out, knowing that his friend was at the stables, tending to his horse and spoiling him with sweet apples. "Found a ghost who'd like to rob you..."

The end

* * *

 **AN** : Well, that's it folks! When I was a kid, there was this amazing Animé version of the Musketeers on TV, in which Aramis was secretly a woman. When it came to find a resolution for Charlotte's fate, I could not resist to use that!

I hope to have entertained you with this tale and that it was as joyful and pleasant for you as it was for me writing it. To all who have reviewed, liked or simply read this story, my heartfelt THANK YOU!

Also, I could not end this without leaving another word of sincere gratitude to Laurie_bug, who was simply amazing throughout the whole thing!

See you all soon!


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